This week Hannah W, Chris, Sabina and I were placed at Siddhartha College to run the afterschool club.Personally this was the best week of the project so far, made by the children of grade 3! As today was the last day of the formal programme we organised a big cricket game on the local field, grade 3 versus grade 4, they all seemed extremely excited once Mr Ekanayake informed them yesterday and all volunteered to bring cricket bats and balls. So today we had over thirty cricket bats turn up and most of the children kitted out in Sri Lankan cricket gear for the big game, there was also many keen to get involved dads.

We started at around 10:20 so that it wasn’t too hot, with grade 4 in bat first and grade 3 fielding. After 60 balls they swapped over, the game finished at about 12pm and the final score was 39 runs for 11 wickets to grade 4 and 36 runs for 8 wickets for grade 3 – so grade 3 lost unfortunately (although they were better)! It was boiling by the time we had finished, we were tired, Chris was tired from umpiring and the dads were tired from getting too competitive with their child. Refreshments were kindly brought for us by the parents and also a small ice-lolly. Before leaving a few children presented us with small gifts and letters expressing their gratitude towards us as teachers and explaining how much they had enjoyed our lessons.

Yesterday we had a meeting in which Mr E explained the children did not enjoy learning English but through our style of teaching with songs and games they now love coming to our lessons and learning (I quote) ‘from the owners of English’. This made is particularly difficult to leave and the fact we were never going to see their faces again or hear their enthusiasm towards the songs was particularly upsetting. This was a fantastic end to a fantastic week at Siddhartha and I am going to miss teaching the children.