Today we travelled to Weligama to teach the young boys of Siddhartha College, as part of a holiday program we set up. The classes cannot be held at the college itself, owing to exams being taken by the older students at the moment. Instead, we are in some well-equipped spare classrooms not far away.

Although the pupils are only in Grade 3, their command of English is quite impressive, particularly as I then discovered that Grade 3 is only their first year of learning English! I have found that in Siddhartha is a great opportunity to deliver an interesting, well planned-out lesson from which the pupils can benefit, owing to their extreme eagerness to interact with us, which sometimes gets in the way of teaching! Today we focussed on having the boys introduce themselves, using the blackboard and answering questions. This was harder than expected because of the large number of students: in Grade 3, we have had a turnout of around 30 boys everyday, which highlights the need for teamwork between the two teachers, and a strong voice in many cases.
They also have several favourite games which we played at the end of the lesson, the most exciting to them being Bingo. The sight of the children jubilantly completing a card is something quite extraordinary, not least because of the deafening cheers!

In the afternoon we made our way to the village of Aththudawa, to continue the painting of our school. Having agreed on the design, the colours and drawn these on the building, we carefully filled it in with paint. We made good progress throughout the week, having coloured in most of the background all around the building. The school is beginning to look very beautiful!