It was decided that four members of the team were going to do the temple school for the
first week of the programme. Emily and I were in charge of teaching year 4 and 5 whilst
Radhika and Jianan were given years 6 and 7 to teach. The first day of school was pretty
hectic, definitely not what I expected. Before we could start teaching we had to meet the high
priest who coordinates everything, the equivalent of a school principal. He was dressed in
the usual monk attire of orange robes. Although he could only speak Sinhala to us, we had
a translator called Gajana who made it very easy to communicate with him. Before entering
the high priest’s office we had to remove our shoes to show our respect. Once we finished
our meeting, the high priest (monk) and Gajana made it their duty to show us around the
school. As soon as the monk stepped out of the office, the classroom right next to his office
that were being out of control came to an abrupt silence. This shows how much of authority
and respect he has amongst the school.

Mine and Emily’s first lesson was class 4a. They seemed like a diligent classroom when we
walked in. Greeting us with ‘morning’ and then sitting down straight away. We introduced
ourselves and went round the class asking for their names. They were shy at first but once
got the hang of it. We taught them about transport as a starting point, just to see where their
level of ability was. Once we finished the lesson we moved on to the next class 4b. For me,
I felt like it was much easier to teach than the first class as it was the same lesson plan as
the previous class and it ran smoothly. After the first two lessons we had an interval, where
the teachers kindly gave us some tea and short eats. I thought by having done two lessons
the last class would be the best and the fact that the class is year 5. However, this was not
the case. Some were not keen to learn and was disrupting the rest of the class. It came to
the point where we sent some pupils to leave the classroom as they weren’t doing what
they were told. At the end of the day, I came out of the school very frustrated of how the day
which turned out to be very exciting at the start became a disappointment. I just hoped the
next day would be better…

…And it was. We were mentally prepared for the year 5’s. We decided if they became rowdy
again, we would split them in the class or send them to the high priest. It worked because
we warned them of the consequences and they obeyed us throughout the lesson. We taught
both years 4 and 5 about family. We thought this was a good topic to teach as they were
very much interested about our families asking us about our father and mothers’ names and
how many brothers or sisters we have. The second day was much better than I thought and
was very much looking forward to the next day.

Instead of teaching years 4 and 5 we ended up playing with the year 7’s. They were eager
for us to do some sports with them. We ended up playing ball games such as catch and
throw and then bench ball without the bench. We did attract a lot of attention from other
years. It was by far for me the most enjoyable day of the programme as well as the most
exhausting. There were times when I just wanted to take a rest but the children were calling
for me to come back to carry on with the game. At the end of the day the year 7’s wanted for
us to come back the next day to play again as they appreciated our company.

The next day was a special day for the school as there was a big ceremony welcoming some
Germans who have offered a grant towards the school. We didn’t do much teaching on this
day, only teaching years 4. They ended up learning about the seasons and how England

has four seasons compared to Sri Lanka who has two. Once we finished teaching we went
to see the remaining parts of the ceremony. This included some dances and speeches. The
teachers served us lunch; it was more like a feast than a lunch. I was stuffed by the end of
the ceremony. Once it had finished we went back to say bye to our year 5’s apologising for
not teaching them and they didn’t seemed to mind. It became very emotional as the year 5’s
gave us handmade cards to both me and Emily. We weren’t expecting this and the fact that
they all decided to do it as a class, I was speechless. After we came out of the school, we
decided to make scoobies, a type of platted bracelet made from colourful threads, for our
year groups to give out on our last day.

Our last day didn’t seem like a last day, as our year groups went out for the day to catch a
film in the cinema. Almost half the school went to see the film, so we weren’t able to give
out our scoobies that we had made the day before. The fact that there were no lessons
to teach we ended up sitting in on some A level classes such as biology and chemistry.
It was exciting to see what the A level standard is like in Sri Lanka. I did enjoy the day
however; it was unfortunate we weren’t able to say our last farewell to our classes. Hopefully
during these remaining weeks of Project Sri Lanka, Emily and I will be able to say our last
goodbyes once and for all.