Thursday 12th November 2026

Having had a great night's sleep, I woke up to find that it was a beautiful sunny morning, and the small swimming pool here looked very inviting, but I didn't have enough time for a swim. The problem is that I then don't get back until around 16:15/16:30, by which time it is invariably bucketing it down, with very little daylight left, too. I will have to try to get up extra early in the mornings, I think, if I am ever going to get the opportunity to use the pool whilst I'm here.

I had a very productive day at the centre, starting with a short review session with Madona, then completing my interviews with individual members of staff, each of which required Madona to be with me to translate from Tamil into English. Neetra and Rajaram could understand me pretty well, but did not have enough English to articulate their responses to my questions, whilst Krishanthini needed a lot more support from Madona, as her level of English is quite low.

As a result of these individual staff interviews, I have agreed with Madona to put them into pairs to maximise their time with me over the next three weeks. Rasha and Yushan have the best English, followed by Neetra and Rajaram, with Durgha and Krishanthini needing the most support. Once my staff interviews were concluded, I moved on to look at lesson planning with Neetra and Rasha, advising them on how best to prepare for their lessons tomorrow and over the weekend.

The weather turned extremely bad in the afternoon, as has been the pattern since I got here, but today seemed particularly awful, with the accompanying drop in temperature making it fell decidedly chilly later on this afternoon. It badly affected the turnout of children today, with only three junior pupils and four senior pupils arriving for the teaching sessions. I wouldn't have wanted to come out in weather like this today, so it was no surprise that the numbers were very low.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Today's photographs show the very inviting swimming pool this morning, me interviewing the individual members of staff, then checking lesson plans with Neetra and Rasha. There is  also a picture of  Kavishkasiri, Sashvin, and Yuwan , the three 7-year-old Grade 2  pupils who made it in after school this afternoon. I have also included pictures of the two 12-year-old Grade 7 boys who arrived later on, and the two 10-year-old Grade 6 girls who were the last to arrive in the pouring rain this afternoon.

    

                                       






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