Blast from the past

As I type tonight’s post I am reminded of my own school days at secondary school. For the first four years of my secondary education I went to boarding school and, after the initial horrors of homesickness and communal living had worn off I quite enjoyed it. It certainly helped me to develop some good study habits which came in very helpful later in my life.

We are working very hard with our Year 8 pupils to help them to prepare for their KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education). Apart from one or two new topics in the exam subjects that the pupils take (Maths, English, Science, Kiswahili and Social Studies) year 8 is pretty much a revision year. Having attended the head teachers’ meeting earlier in the week and learnt about some of the finer arts of making sure the pupils perform well I am trying to do my bit to assist in the coaching and encouraging.

Tonight the five year 8 youngsters who live in our home are taking a science test which will be followed up by some re-teaching of the topics that they have not yet mastered. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. If you are a people watcher an exam room of any kind is a fascinating thing to observe. You can easily spot the confident students as they steam through the questions, pausing every now and then to catch an elusive thought before committing it to paper. At the other end of the spectrum the pupils who have clearly got no idea what the answers are squirm in their seats, look to the ceiling for inspiration, stare at the paper in disbelief or put their heads in their hands and slump on the desk – possible praying but more probably trying hard to make the time pass.

This evening our youngsters are, to their credit, having a good go at the test. They are working out of a revision book (The Highflyer Series – a revision institution in Kenya) which has got mock exam papers for each subject. They have all resisted the temptation to look up the answers at the back of the book. I have set this test up carefully with them, explaining that it will help me and their teacher to work out what topics we need to revise with them to make sure they understand them. I’m sure that somewhere deep down in their student psyche the children probably think I am very cruel working them so hard. I remember thinking the same myself when I was sat with about thirty other boys in ‘prep’ at boarding school. It’s funny the way life works out. When I was 13 years old the last thing I wanted to do was to be the teacher supervising our homework time.

It will, I hope, be very rewarding watching the youngsters become more confident about their school work as we go on with our year 8 programme. Right now we’re at the start of our year 8 marathon.  I’m looking forward to helping the children see where they went wrong and working towards the ‘eureka’ moment when the topic finally lands fully in their understanding.