Gurkha Integration School Meeting

This afternoon I had a "management meeting" for the Gurkha Integration School. (See my previous post on the Gurkha Peace Foundation)

As a way of introduction, for I forsee I will be commenting on this a lot, Andrew and Siobhan are trained CELTA teachers, Gwen is a teaching assistant, Cllr Bob Davidson is our "head master" and Bhim the founder of Gurkha Peace Foundation and orchestration agent.

I'm volunteering as a teaching assistant, but that doesn't mean I have any experience of teaching at all!

Today's meeting was geared towards working out a scheme of lessons, what the Gurkha wives want to learn and how we plan to run the pilot.

We have initial funding for a year, but it would be great to have it running for a long time. The funding is also wife specific, so we cannot, as much as we would like to, integrate the male Gurkhas at the moment.

The initial plan is to run two classes on a Saturday, of two different standards, to teach key areas of English Language and culture that is essential to living in Britain.

The current ESoL guidelines are levels 1 to 3. Each level takes one year. Once this is complete, Adult Education are able to take them on for other classes.

However, we cannot be sure of their capabilities without a period of assessment and classes.

Therefore we decided to run term time classes and meet again at Easter to review. The estimated plan is to bring the higher class up to ESoL 2 and present them with a certificate. We would then move the lower class to become the higher class and take on a separate class.

Discussions were had about volunteers, and we all seem to know people who may be willing to do some assistance, if not commit to every week.

There are key areas we need to address with teaching. While it is straightforward to say they need to know health and social care, housing, shopping etc, there may be things we just wouldnt consider because of cultural differences. For example, public toilets!

It has been proposed we use outside parties to do a lesson as a key speaker, for example, a local PCSO on community policing to help share the weight of the task at hand and teach in more depth subjects we may not have expertise in.

I am quite excited about Saturday now. I will be working with Andrew in the higher class and we have a basic lesson plan of introductions, elliciting ambitions and mingling games for three hours!

We are seeking volunteers, so please get in touch if you think you can help.