Student Intervention At Brindavan Tent School With Tarkeybein’s English Curriculum
Last week, we wrote about what Sarala Ma’am, the teacher at Brindavan Tent School, had to say about the changes she’s seen in the kids and the entire school ecosystem after our student intervention program – Mentor India – during this academic year. (You can watch our school transformation video at the end of this post!) We also told you about the assessments we undertook with all the students, and how we are getting the data analyzed.
We Found Our Partners (But Not In Crime!)
The analysis is done, and the data has been overwhelming for us! But before getting to that, we want to heartily acknowledge the role played by our amazing friends at Tarkeybein, whose English curriculum was implemented in the tent school. This collaboration has been so beautiful, we have thoroughly enjoyed working with their team. Our execution of the Tarkeybein curriculum in school happened so seamlessly, neither the teachers nor the students ever realised there were two NGOs in play! We are so proud of this, and look forward to more such collaborations.
We implemented their two books – “Stumble Upon” and “I Can Read” in the school. The first one introduced English alphabets to the students, not just in a rote way, but by making pattern and sound recognizing activities very interactive and playful. The second book helped kids put sounds/letters together to read words, which is something they struggled with.
Before And After Student Intervention
In our base assessment, most students were unable to even recognize the letters, and had no idea what the sounds associated with the letters were. They could only read words that they were made to memorize by heart. For instance, if the teacher made them repeat the word “mat” 10 times everyday, they would recognize the word “mat” anywhere and say it out loud confidently. But if we replaced “mat” with “cat”, and asked them to repeat after, they would have no clue how to read it.
This rote learning at such basic levels of education was frightening for our team! But when we happened to meet Akanksha Agarwal, the founder of Tarkeybein, who had the perfect solution. We were quick to put our heads together and team up to bring their books to tent school. Not only were the kids thrilled to get new big books with colorful illustrations, (thanks to our countless contributors!), they could finally understand letters and sounds!
The teacher, Sarala Ma’am, was trained by Akanksha and Team KYS, and the results have been just amazing since then! Our endline assessments spoke for themselves about the students’ progress in figures – what we have been fortunate to witness over the past year with our own eyes! 🙂
Take a look at it yourself:
We couldn’t be happier, and we have more plans to bring these numbers up in the next academic year!
Words That Motivate And Matter!
When we asked Akanksha how her experience collaborating with us has been, she had this to say –
“For Tarkeybein, its been a very insightful journey to work with KnowYourStar. Their role modeling for Sarala Mam was very important for the successful implementation of our content. Her receptivity towards shifting her teaching practices came about due to the role-modeling done by KYS teachers. Their relationship with her was beautiful and offered us opportunities to learn and include in our teacher engagement design as well.
Their feedback for our content also helped in refining it further. Simple insights like the difference between the sound of V and W and the process of explaining it to children helped us add detailing to our work. We are very grateful for their belief in our content and manner in which they ensure its effective implementation in school.”
What a wonderful way to end this academic year, with a bang! We are celebrating this success by arranging the first-ever Annual Day for the tent school kids at the end of this month. So glad to be on this journey towards light, and having such awesome fellow-travellers! 🙂
Enjoyed reading about this? Then you might like to read KYS Retreat – Saying Yes To Rocking The Mentor India Boat!
If there’s a story that needs to be told, we are ready to tell it. Write to us at contact@knowyourstar.com with your story lead, or contact us on Facebook or Twitter.
This is so inspiring team KYS. The progression is true result of the hours and hearts that have gone into it. Congratulations, and thank you.
I would like to congratulate the school children for their achievement where they started learning new things and started use it. Also hats up to you all for doing a wonderful job once again.
I really can see your immense happiness after seeing their progress keep it up.