Schoolyear 2015 December 5 th  of 2014 until March 3rd of 2015: The long winter break. Many families flee the cold in Darjeeling and spend their winter with relatives in the lowlands. Again and again the father of a family will get a job somewhere else and they will take their belongings to start a new home and a new life. That is whyNeha form 2 nd  class and Biken from 1 st  class left our school, unfortunately. Both pupils were supported by godparents. We hope that our school could give them a good groundwork so they can build up their knowledge well from that in their new school.   Taekwando Training and Day Trip in the Winter We are very happy that we could hire a very enthusiastic teacher last school year. He mainly teaches sports and was willing  to offer Taekwando training on a daily basis in the winter. 10 to 15 pupils participated regularly. The high point was a day trip to a summit near Darjeeling. The group of pupils took a bus to Tigerhill, a mountain of 2700 m height. When visibility is good you can see and admire the 8000 m high mountains of the Himalaya like Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and Kanchenzoenga. And our pupils were lucky that morning. After a couple Taekwando exercises and an elaborate picknick they walked back to Darjeeling. School Start on March 3rd, 2014 After the long winter break all the pupils are looking forward to resume school. We have 20 new pupils, many of them attend the Kindergarten classes. Meanwhile we have pupils that come from other schools, too. The good quality of our education and the good preconditions like small classes, good learning materials etc. are becoming well known in the region. We were able to hire two new female teachers. Ms. Rajak has teaching experience in various schools in Darjeeling and will surely be able to enrich our teaching staff and our school. Ms. Jyoti Gupta is a beginner in teaching. She did an extra teacher´s training for grammar school after her exam. The teaching staff at the moment consists of 7 female class teachers, one female assistant teacher, one sports teacher, 2 aids mainly for the Prenursery and Nursery classes, and our principal Rohit Pradhan. We will probably be able to hire another assistant teacher this year. Now 92 Children attend St. Anthony´s School in the following classes: Thanks to another donation by Mr. And Mrs. Madaus we are able to continue our snack and milk project. Everyday the children get a cup of milk and a piece of fruit or an egg. Like in the previous years many recurrent activities will take place like the “Green Friday” (a weekly action to collect garbage), the monthly activities like the environment week, the sports contest, the school festival, the feast with art exhibition, Teachers Day, Independece Day, final celebration etc. We will report on all these activitities on our homepage. April 2015 Our first president Stephanie Lücking had a sabbatical this year so she could spend another 2 months in Darjeeling. In a letter she reports her impressions and the effects of the earth quake in Darjeeling. Extension of the secondary school Our oldest pupils are attending the 3rd grade now. We have decided to try to build up a secondary branch (in English according tot he prerequisites of  the Delhiboard). Low performing pupils will switch to a Nepali school after graduating from 4th grade. Teacher´s Education in team work Our president Stephanie Lücking is paying an 8 week visit to Darjeeling at the moment during her sabattical. She wants to engage in active work with and fort he school. Often we have dicussed in the past that here teaching methods like partner and group work, independent learning, games for learning etc. are hardly known. Standard teaching from up front and learning by heart are commonly used. So we had the idea to offer a training unit in team work: first we offered exercise classes fort he teachers. They loved the experience and were surprised about the results. In a second part pupils of 2nd and 3rd grade worked on their tasks. The teachers coached the pupils together with Stephanie Lücking with their various plays and tasks. The pupils enjoyed this different style of learning and participated with enthusiasm. At the weekly teacher´s meeting we discussed how the new teaching could further be implemented. So we do hope that these proposals will influence the teaching at St. Anthony´s School in the future. Drawing contest End of April there was a drawing contest. Festivals During the course oft he year we will have a school festival again with an art exhibition, teacher´s meeting, Independence Day, end of school year celebration. May 2015 On the 25th of April a horrible and devastating earth quake occured in the neighbour state Nepal. 8000 people died and there are still many villages cut off from supplies waiting for help. The epicentre was only 350 km away from Darjeeling so we could very well feel the enormous shakes and three aftershocks. We experienced the feeling of horror and helplessness. As a precautionary measure the schools were closed for one week also here. Many pupils have relatives in Nepal and some families travelled there to help the victims oft he earth quake. When life started to normalize the class teachers addressed the topic in the lessons, together with our president Stephanie Lücking. So the pupils were able to talk about their experiences and fears. At the end the pupils wrote down prayers and wishes for the people in Nepal and read them. They also collected 11.500 Rupies (appr. 180 €) which we topped up to 15.000 Rupies. This donation was given to a cousin of our principal who works in Nepal and who several days after the earth quake visited far off villages to help and bring food and tents (Saran Subbas report is available at facebook under his name). End of July Saran Subba sent a thank you letter to St. Anthony´s School. Parents education In May another educational meeting is scheduled on the topic of child abuse and child labor. The first session took place at our school. A lawyer explained the legal implications. Our second meeting which was a street theater with open discussion is organized by the government. We are lucky to have Reena who is a friend of our principal as a staff meber in that governmental department. She feels strongly attached to our school. June 2015 New books for our library. The pupils can choose from 91 books now. July 2015 On the 11th and 12th of July the first Taekwando contest took place in Darjeeling. About 300 athletes from schools and sports clubs oft he district West Bengale participated. 4 pupils of St. Anthony´s School took part and were very successful. Jiwan and Nihal reached the final match in the class of 21 to 25 kg. Jiwan won gold and Nihal silver. The other two pupils of St. Anthony´s School took part in different weight classes and also reached excellent results: Uijwal won a bronze medal and Prayog won a silver medal. August 2015 Preparations for Independence Day are running in high gear. The pupils help clearing the paths and yard of stones so the soccer game can take place in the school yard. Fort the first time we celebrated Independencs Day at our school on the 15th of August this year. Usually at this time of the year the weather prohibits such activities outdoor because the monsun often brings heavy rain for days. But we were very lucky and our St. Anthony family and all our guests (pupils, parents and neighbours were invited as well as 4 guests of honour among them the regional governor) were able to enjoy all the shows with dance, Taekwando and songs. One pupil called Smriti, grade 3, pointed out in her report that the highlight of the day was the Taekwando demonstration for many guests: pupils and our teacher jumped thru a burning ring. And another piece of good news about Taekwando: the 4 successful pupils who won a medal in the July contest are invited to participate in the next contest in Kalkutta or Kalimpong! A summery about what happend in 2015

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