Excellent education for 2500+ students in Chennai

City updates - Chennai:

Chennai Students Kondattam is the largest Fellow-led event organized by Teach For India - Chennai. With an annual participation of 3000+ students spanning over the two days, it was a remarkable success this year.
While the stage was set beautifully by all our stakeholders, our students leveraged the opportunity well to maximize their learning and to showcase all their incredible talents.

Teach For India’s Response To COVID-19:

Our Staff, Fellows, and Student communities have been tirelessly working during these tough times. Over the past 3 weeks, through sustained and dedicated effort, our Fellows, have managed to get in touch with 70% of our students and their families. We have been looking to understand how these families are doing in terms of physical health, availability of essential supplies, housing, finances and access to learning. We are continuously working to identify the families most in need of assistance so we can use our emergency fund to help them. We are also preparing for the possibility that schools may remain closed for some time, and so we are working on a plan to help our children learn virtually.

Anantharaman and his school team identified the requirements in North Chennai Cluster and got onto to grounds in distributing food packets and essential kits (in collaboration with Yein Udaan). Immediate financial and medical needs of the community was attended to. Families in need of help for paying rent were directed to external support system.

Fellow Narrative from Mr. Srinivas Subramanian:

As the academic year comes to an end, I take this opportunity to extend my deepest gratitude from the bottom of my heart. The last term whizzed in a flash as the students were filled with all-round activities right from their academic calendar to extracurricular activities like their yearly ‘Chennai student Kondattam (CSK)’ . As they
were rigorously preparing for their term end exams to finish their year on a high, things halted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic taking over the globe.The focus shifted primarily towards working on the enhancement of the students reading and writing skills as they are moving to their 9th grade. Students indulged in systematic and consistent practice of reading various books apart from their school texts and were in the process of mastering their abilities to write a book review.

They have made considerable progress as it is evident from the tracker they use to record their reading routine, and they are better organized when they write their book review. Based on the tests they have taken
for mastering their other subjects, there are 30% students who fair between 65-85%, 30% students who fair between 35-65% and the rest have been working to the best of their abilities and have shown their ability to
pass their papers.

One of the big milestone which the student indulged in for enhancing their access and exposure was through their participation in rural-urban exchange program that took place between our school and Anna Gem Private school. Students from both the schools got the opportunity to visit each other's school and they got to learn a lot through academic and cultural activities organized at both the schools.The visit also allowed them to build their perspective about the country's education system in general by comparing the education system in both a public and private set up. They went on to expand their friends circle as children from both the schools went on to become friends by the end of the program.

In continuation to enhancing their reading abilities and develop a love for reading, the students took on an additional responsibility to help their peers in 3rd grade primary school by sharing their knowledge about
reading words and whole sentences. As the project kicked off the students shared additional skills with their buddies in 3rd grade by teaching the art, colouring and painting. They also did some craft work together by sharing their knowledge of making a bird nest which they had learnt in their previous term. The children also
helped their little buddies in making them realize the etiquettes that needs to be maintained in a classroom to allow a wholesome learning experience both for the teachers and the students. The students took their buddy role responsibly, and it was visible from the interactions they continued to have during their break hours apart from the regular weekly visits during which they met. Our children on the other hand began to grow in terms of responsibility, maturity and ownership.

Taking career guidance coaching for students of 8th grade was something that was exciting and thrilling for me to conduct during this term as it was unique and the whole of our 8th grade together for this. No day was fixed and the situation necessitated for us to be on our toes, ready to innovate and enhance to keep up with
the uncertainties that was throwing up. We could get through this as a result of combined efforts we put up as a school team including other teachers like me!

At Teach For India, every Fellow goes through a leadership journey with the students, overcoming the challenges and contributing their best to the growth of the students.

One of our Fellow, Dinesh from the 2018 Cohort reflects on his experience over the past term with his students.

"The Fellowship has been the greatest experience I have ever had in my life. So far, I felt like I’m someone who took from the society. Now, I feel satisfied to give back to the society through this fellowship. I am able to see many changes in the students’ lives and I have lots of hope for their future. 

The second term of this academic year is a great leap in my Fellowship journey. I feel satisfied with the growth in the academics, values and mindsets of the students. Last term, I realized one of the flaws that limited students learning -- students don’t have space to try their answer in written format. This term I have circulated all the students with worksheet for every chapter which will have questions from inside the chapter, questions behind every Chapter in the book and thinking questions related to the topics. Through this worksheet students got a space to try answering the questions through writing. They can try writing answers to question multiple times until it gets perfect as they use pencils for worksheets.

Because of the practice of using worksheets, 90% of the students scored ~10% marks higher than last term. Now students are able to read and comprehend the question, and write and then answer appropriately. I was able to witness the answers coming from the students are more specific with examples and clarity (when we have oral quiz).

 Initially, the students were less aware of resources and the proper way of using the same. But after assigning them with responsibilities they are operating in a completely different way. The responsibilities for library and computer lab maintenance, completion and keeping the worksheet safe made them more accountable, responsible and cautious about the resources. Students began to stay back after school saying if I go home early, I would waste my time. They also started to teach their parents about the importance of resources and the urgent need of limiting the wastage.

The big idea I’m having for third term is preparing a workbook instead of a worksheet, at the same time upskilling the students to make their own workbook. For skill building, I tried piloting the worksheet making for few chapters in term two, 60% of the students were able to drew ideas from the previous worksheets and make a worksheet for any chapter by themselves.

Most exciting and memorable moment for me as a teacher is when the students with less academic score last term showed better result during this term end assessments. The reducing number of issues related to bullying and complaining about others’ actions has reduced because every student is occupied doing their worksheets.

The challenging moment for me this term is dealing with students who had learning disability. By continual effort they were able to score above 15%, which again is a milestone for me in this year."