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St Columba Primary School

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St Columba Primary School
Context
Located in Mumbai, this 193-year-old girls' school was founded by the Scottish missionary Wilson family. It operates as a day school, catering to girls aged 3-15 years. The academic year commences in June. The school places a strong emphasis on communication skills, recognizing the negative impact that the Covid pandemic had on language development. To address this, they have implemented a reading fluency program in collaboration with Auxilium School. In primary school, a single class teacher is responsible for the majority of subjects, fostering a consistent learning environment.
Overall impact
The SkillsBuilder programme has been beneficial to teachers and students. We had the online teachers training that helped the teachers to get a better understanding of the programme. The training also explained how to use the resources for the skills. Students are actively participating in all the activities and are achieving the levels gradually. As a school, we have been conducting projects and activities throughout the year, wherein we specifically emphasise to our students the importance of acquiring good reading and listening skills through the Reading For Inspiration Day and Summer Reading challenge. Overall,the Global Accelerator programme has been impactful for our teachers and students.
Keep it simple
We launched essential skills in classrooms with an essential skills activity. We also conducted teacher training for pre primary and primary staff. This included showing our educators examples of visual displays, examples, and teaching resources. We reinforced skill development through reward systems including stars and house points, and by incorporating students' essential skills into the Recognition Calendar.
Start early, keep going
Two stages will be the focus for this year. Senior pre-primary level: This includes three classes of 5-year-old students, with 40 students per class. Grade 3: This includes three classes of 8-9-year-old students, with 50 students per class.
Measure it
Our teachers conducted an offline baseline assessment to determine step level to start teaching their students for the focused essential skills. Some of our educators then repeated the assessment to understand the progress that their classes had made.
Focus tightly
We focused on 4 essential skills: Speaking, Listening, Problem Solving and Creativity. Teaching of essential skills took place in classrooms weekly, built into subjects chosen by our teachers. Teachers used resources from Skills Builder to help students to build their essential skills.
Keep practising
Bring it to life
Our school runs a variety of competitions and events for example our October Reading Inspiration Day, picnics, field trips and trips in our local community. These activities give our students opportunities to use their essential skills in the real world and discuss their strengths and interests.
What's next
We aim to expand our knowledge and understanding of essential skills and to integrate essential skills into a broader range of areas. We would also like to implement more detailed progress tracking so that we can deepen impact.
India