Thursday 7th November 2024

We seem to be speeding through this week - and through our time here in Kurunegala - with an exciting trip to the Hill Country to look forward to tomorrow. Today, we tried to ensure that all our loose ends were tied up, so I gave all my lesson observation notes in to Dinushka, and we completed our scrutiny of the end of year tests for Grades 1 to 5, which we have found very interesting, and an area where we might be able to offer a good deal of support.

Assessment tests are often a bit controversial, but they are an important way of finding out how well students have understood their learning, and what progress they have made. Apart from one of the Grades, the questions generally seemed at a reasonable level (given a few exceptions), but it was the weighting of the scores across the papers that we had the biggest issue with, as we don't think it allowed for assessment of students' performance across all Maths topics.

Having completed the monitoring and evaluation tasks we have been set during this main part of our stay at the Royal International School, I am looking forward to doing some more strategic thinking when we return from our break in the Hill Country, as I hope to be working with Ravi, the Managing Director, to draw up a School Development Plan, and an Annual Action Plan that underpin the whole development of the school, which is something I feel highly skilled in.

Sandra popped by after school to deliver our passports, which have now been stamped with our Visa extensions (at a cost of around £80 each). Valerie went off to Selyn with Sandra, and I went off with Liyanage, the driver, to get 60,000LKR out from the ATM to pay the bill! When Sandra came back with Valerie later, she popped in for a cup of tea, and we reflected on how we both wished that our paths had crossed a lot sooner, as we have developed such a strong friendship.

Today's photographs show a little boy who read to me today in Sinhala (which I enjoyed, even though I was of no help to him whatsoever), one of my favourite tree that we pass under each day on our way to the entrance of the Junior School, and a few more of Valerie's experience in school today.








Comments

  1. CharlesNovember 10, 2024 at 4:17 AM

    Valerie must be in the background, but she certainly has the pupils hard at it...As for you listening to the boy read in Sinhala, he looks as though he might have been able to convey some of the meaning by the way he expressed himself - such an important part of the reading exercise (as we learn at St Michael's).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday 4th March 2025

Image
I finally got to my last day here which started very early, as I was up at the crack of dawn to sort out a few things in the apartment, then get my last few bits of packing done. Razeena once again brought me breakfast, which was a great start to my day. After breakfast, I popped a present for Sandra in Ravi's office, just in case I didn't see her to say goodbye to her but then met her at the Junior School on my way back and said a fond farewell to her there. I left at 08:30, with Liyanage driving me to the airport - not that I was aware of that journey, because I had got up so early this morning that I nodded off for most of it. I hardly had to queue at all for either the security checks or for check-in, so I had quite a bit of time before my flight was due to take off at 12:50. I had a delicious, filled croissant for lunch, with a latte, then went to Gate 9, where I didn't have to wait too long before boarding the plane, which thankfully took off on time. It was an 11-hou...
Read more

Friday 1st November 2024

Image
There was no school again today, as the staff were out on a staff trip somewhere (not sure where they went), so we had breakfast a little later at 08:30, then did some washing before heading into school at 10:30 to do some planning and preparation for our Maths Staff Training session on differentiation, which is taking place after school on Monday. There are 53 staff coming we have been told - across Grades 1 to 5, so I think it will be pretty challenging for us! Having got as far as we could with the planning and preparation, we went shopping for some Maths resources Valerie needed to purchase, plus a little trip to Halal Bakers to buy some bread for breakfast tomorrow. The street shops are an amazing concoction of buildings with all kinds of trades going on within them, and on the extremely busy Kurunegala to Kandy road, so Valerie took some photographs of the local shops, which you will see below today. We got back to the apartment, and I got on with planning out the Maths Staff Tra...
Read more

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more