School Enrichment ProgrammeGovt. Girls Senior Secondary School, Vasant Kunj Govt. Boys Senior Secondary School, Vasant Kunj

2014-2015

Background

Access to basic education lies at the heart of development. Sustained access to meaningful learning that has value is critical to long term improvements in productivity, the reduction of inter-generational cycles of poverty, demographic transition, preventive health care, the empowerment of women, and reductions in inequality. With the Annual Survey of Education Report, 2014 indicating that close to 50% of children in grade V cannot read grade II text, and about 75% of students cannot do basic mathematical functions like division, it is safe to assume that a majority of students in our government schools lack fundamental skills i.e. reading, numeracy.

Introduction

Over the last 19 years, Ritinjali has been working with marginalised groups through many educational and development-related endeavors, nurturing empowered and responsible citizens. Our work with the two government schools of Delhi complements our mission of providing quality education to all through the rejuvenation of the government schooling system. As a starting point, we have designed an Enrichment Programme in Math’s and English for children of grades VI and XII at the Government Boys Senior Secondary School (GBSSS) and Government Girls Senior Secondary Girls School, Vasant Kunj respectively. Both the schools cater to children who come from adjoining Hindi medium Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools after completing grade V. The strength of both the schools is over a thousand and they run in shifts with the GGSSS in the morning (9 a.m. – 1p.m.) and GBSSS in the evening ( 1:20 p.m.- 6:20 p.m.). Broad areas of intervention were arrived at in collaboration with the Education Department and in-depth consultation with the Principals of both the schools followed by school visits and interaction with teachers and students. The needs and critical areas identified to be addressed immediately included basic reading, writing, and number skills.

Details of the ProgramEnglish (Grades VI and XII)The Ritinjali team has been taking regular English classes in the schools starting December, 2014. While English is being taught in GGSSS at grade VI level, the English expert also takes grade XII classes for

the GBSSS. Grade VI has 4 sections of which VI A is the English medium section and the rest three are Hindi medium sections. The focus in English for grade VI is on speaking and basic comprehension, through strategies such as picture composition, role play, etc. Students also enact the story that is written, an exercise which has proved very useful in getting students to lose their inhibitions as they try to speak in English. For grade XII, the focus is on getting the boys from GBSSS prepared for their board exams through hands on assessments and practice for reading comprehensions.

Government Boys Senior Secondary School, Vasant Kunj Student ProfileThe Government Boys Senior Secondary School B1 Vasant Kunj has a total of 102 boys studying in Class XII. Most of the students have been studying in this school since class VIII. They are first-generation English learners

FacultyThey have one guest English teacher. He is fairly untrained. He takes classes and carries out assessment as well. He had taken the students through their prescribed course, but even till November, one-third of the course had not been covered. The students were not clear about the

advanced writing skills and had not studied some of the lessons from their textbooks.

Scope of WorkThe objective of the intervention was to clarify the concepts that the boys were not clear about and to help them to tackle their exams in a way that they could score better.

InterventionThe focus was on helping students with time management, format accuracy, comprehension skills, advanced writing skills and literature.

ChallengesSince the intervention started at a stage when the academic session was very close to the Pre Board exams, the aim of the intervention was to provide them with quick fixes and to give them tips (and tricks) on what to write in order to obtain maximum marks (given the fact that their written expression is fairly poor). The fact that many of them cannot even form a sentence in correct English, the task was mainly to help them write all that is relevant, even if it was in the form of broken sentences.

Two assessmentsThe mark sheets attached show the marks obtained by the boys in two exams .The first column indicates the marks obtained in their last term exam and the last column shows the marks the Pre Board marks. There are a few boys who were given a retest, so that they could reach a passing mark. In the annexure, the results from the assessments are attached. 93% of the students were able to pass in these assessments.

Progress Achieved

• Out of 102 boys in class 12th, 95 boys passed their Term exams. Their understanding and basic sentence construction has improved.

• The boys have understood how to correctly express themselves and format their responses.

Results of the assessments from the Govt. Boys Senior Secondary School are attached in the annexure.

Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Vasant Kunj Student ProfileThe Government Girls Senior Secondary Schoo1, B1 Vasant Kunj has a total of 4 sections in class VI. Each section has around 45 girls. A large

majority of these girls joined school in class V and had never studied English at the MCD schools they came from. They have practically no English speaking skills.

Scope of Work The objective of the intervention was to help the girls get over their fear of speaking English. The Principal suggested we focus on one group at a time, so Class VI was picked (also, as they will stay with the school for some years)

The idea was to encourage them to experiment with speaking the language, as they know it right now, without the fear of being judged.

InterventionThe intervention started with basics in learning English language. After a month and a half, the girls began to lose their fear of speaking. A great deal of drama and music has been used to get the girls to start speaking. A few videos of the intervention are uploaded on our website www.ritinjali.org.

ChallengesThe girls do not comprehend basic spoken English. Even words like ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘who and ‘what’ are difficult for them to understand. They find it extremely challenging to form a complete sentence.

Assessment At the end of the term, the progress of the girls was evaluated by asking them to introduce themselves in English. It is heartening to see that a large number of them are now able to at least speak ten correct sentences about themselves-with full comprehension and correct expression. They have begun to enact simple scenes when they speak in English. The students were also helped to enact an entire story, so that they understand the meaning as well as express themselves using English. Peer assessment takes place and at the

end of each session, feedback is provided.

Progress Achieved• A large number of girls are able to at least speak ten correct

sentences about themselves-with full comprehension and correct expression.

• The girls have shown marked improvement in their comprehension skills.

• They have become comfortable with their image and feel less conscious while expressing in English.

Maths (Grade VI)

In the Math classes, the focus is on basic Math skills that include the four operations of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division. The girls

are very enthusiastic to learn. They have varying levels of skills and quite a few need individualized instruction to support them to come at par with the class level. While the focus is on Math Conceptual skills, the team is simultaneously working on their Vocabulary and pronunciation as even the Hindi Medium sections have shown preference for being taught using English Mathematical Terms.

Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Vasant Kunj Student ProfileThere are 45 students in each class. The math’s expert is working with students of four sections of Grade VI to help them achieve the minimum levels of learning in Mathematics.

ProcessThe system was finalized in discussion with Ms. Banerjee, Vice Principal GGSSS and Ritinjali and involved ascertaining the status quo in terms of student competencies and working towards bridging the gap that emerges.

The whole process involved interaction with students and a review of the weekly syllabus for the whole year to understand what the teachers are doing in the regular classes to help design the Lesson Plans for the intervention.

Challenges• The girls come from different schools and have varying levels of

competencies. The syllabus that they follow does not take into account the individual learning curve. Hence, while doing the activity on Area and Perimeter, it was very common to come across students who struggled with counting also.

• The large size of the classes does not naturally lend itself to an activity based class.

• The girls are going for tuitions and many of them just LEARN the solutions to the sums given in the text book. So it appears that they know the concept but if one probes a little, the reality becomes clear.

• Different sections are taught by different teachers and are doing different concepts at a given time. There is no parity in terms of the concepts being done and how they are done in class. Even then the English medium section seems to have a better lead.

Strengths• Most of the students are very interested in learning and thoroughly

enjoy the activities that are done. Their participation is complete as each student is part of a group and has to share some information or understanding about the concept that is being done.

• They are quite a tough group of girls as every morning and take turns to sweep their rooms and getting their classrooms ready for the day. The rooms are left in a very bad state by the boys in the evening shift and the girls without any complaint even during the chilly winter mornings go about their task. While the rest of the girls settle down to learn the two girls on duty quickly wash their hands and rush back to the class to ensure they do not miss out.

• The Vice Principal is very accommodating and has made arrangements for classes to be plotted in the time table.

Work done • The first step was to get to know the students and gauge their

competencies in Mathematics. What was required was to begin at the very basic level which is the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

• The girls are adept at using to the regular chalk and talk method to learn the procedure involved in different concepts. To address the need to understand the underlying concept, a number of hands on strategies were used like Manipulatives from Jodo Gyan and simple tools like bindis and graph paper.

• The level of engagement is quite high and many activities have been done in groups and pairs where students are required to verbalize the procedure that they followed. It is something that is very new for them and making oral presentation to even the very familiar audience of around 40 is a daunting task for them.

• The students are very well behaved and listened all the time but spontaneous interaction came naturally to just about 6 and 7. However the number is increasing and now many come forward and share. The class was linked to the students’ lives through stories to explain the concept. This got the girls excited and less hesitant to express themselves.

• The concepts that were chosen were as per the syllabus that was given, but many students were not able to even name the concept that they are learning and talk in terms of the chapter number from the book. The chapters that they are supposed to cover are ticked in the textbooks and students are expected to learn on their own. Many students consider the ticking of the chapter as “Topic Done.” This meant that activities on concepts of Area and Perimeter and Algebraic expression that I did is all the support that many students had.

• The students need not just the skills in Math but in Communication and basic etiquettes too. Many sit with their feet up on the chair and slouch. These are also areas they are being supported during the class. The motivation level is kept high with anecdotes and stories. The timing of Nobel Prize for Malala was appropriate and was used to make a connection and to have them motivated.

• The classes and topics covered from December 2014 to February 2015 are as follows:

Month December January February

Topics covered

• 4 Operations• Area and Perimeter

• Area and Perimeter• Algebraic Expressions

• Ratio & Proportion

•

AssessmentThe task was based on the concept of Area and Perimeter and Algebraic Expressions. The tasks involved creating their own set of buildings on graph paper and finding out area and perimeter and the next one was to create their own mini stories incorporating the four operations and then developing algebraic expressions. The outcome was that the students understood the concept through an outside the box activity.

Some Assessments

Progress Achieved• A large number of girls understand the basic concepts in maths,

e.g., two more, two less etc.

• Their behaviour inside the classes has shown improvement and they can now relate math concepts to their everyday lives.

• They have shown some improvement in their self-image and communication skills.

Annexure: Results: GBSSS Term Examination