Sita School Report June- July 2012

Sita School Report June- July 2012

Enrolment

This year, SitaSchool has 30 students –28 are returning, and two are new. The children’s ages range from 3 to 17. Four children have moved on to the 8th standard at the local High School but they are continuing to be supported by the school. One student moved to the First standard in the local Convent school. Two students left temporarily because of family problems but the two boys insisted on coming back to school after a brief, negative experience of a boarding school. Enrolment is fairly steady(last year at this time there were 32 students).

The teachers are continuing as before.

Village history

The children have been exploring the history of the village by interviewing long-term residents, exploring the material culture of the village (investigating objects from their families), and through investigating the natural landscape – considering past, present and future developments. They’ve imagined what it was like to move into the village with the original settlers and used that as a basis for creative writing.

German volunteers

The school hosted two short-term volunteers from Germany, Jenny and Tobi, who lent muscles to the ongoing gardening project as well as extra hands to other activities, such as drama and mask-making.

The pictures below illustrate breaking new ground for raised bed gardens – both with tile borders and from concrete molds – which are now ready for planting.

Theatre of the Oppressed workshop

The school also hostedRadhaRanganathan, a resident of Bangalore, who led the children in interactive exercises inspired by the methods of Theatre of the Oppressed. Using role-plays, children were able to experiment with creative alternatives to a range of situations, including violent – or potentially violent - interactions.

Music class with youngest children

Since the beginning of June the youngest children have been doing a music class with Imogen Sahi. Amongst other activities they have made instruments to tell the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff and will be performing it for the children and their parents some time next month..

Kannada book

NeelaApte from Belgaum visited us in July to discuss a new Kannada text book for use with Government school children as a supplementary book. We look forward to further collaboration on this project.

New desks

Good news regarding school infrastructure –the Alternative Law Forum have donated a number of sturdy low tables that work perfectly as desks. We have purchased four new small blackboards.

Paintings for APU

While Sita School does not usually sell children’s artwork, we recently made an exception. The APU (AzimPremji University) has purchased a number of paintings from schoolchildren (originally generated in an art project on patterns) that they will use to decorate their office space. We will use the funds to help pay for art materials for the school.

FA on how children generate materials

Sita School was chosen as field assignment location for GopalChandu master’s student in Elementary Education from TISS, Mumbai. He will be investigating how children generate their own educational materials as part of the learning process.

IIMB visit

Two students from the Indian Institute of Management visited the Sitaschool recently as part of an investigation of Asha, and its relationship with its educational partners. They met with the teachers and children to understand more clearly how Asha functions as an organization. We were happy to share our positive experience of collaboration and partnership with Asha.

A new steward

We are happy to welcome Susan Loucks as our new steward. She has been visiting us regularly and has shared our concerns and this report has in part been written by her.

Future plans

In the coming week Santhosh, Sarojini and Jane will be accompanying 15 children to visit the centre at Thulir. The children are very excited at the prospect and we are sure this will be a rich learning experience. This year we have taken an overall theme of Journeys and this is one part of that.

We have just bought a new uniform for the children. The parents will be contributing half the cost.

Susan Loucks and Jane Sahi

28th July 2012