A Coventry school vice-principal is leading a programme supporting teachers at some of the poorest schools in India.
Linda Edge, from St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, is passing on her skills and knowledge to primary and secondary school teachers in and around Rajpura.
She is working with two others to lead a group of 25 teaching fellows from across the UK and America.
Their training includes in the areas of behaviour for learning, marking techniques, assessment, story sharing, group work and phonics for children.
It is part of an initiative from Limited Resource Teacher Training (LRTT), which aims to end educational inequality.
Linda also visited Ghana as a teaching fellow with LRTT last year.
There, she experienced limited access to water and electricity and worked with teachers at schools with classes of up to 120 children. She was moved by the kindness and generosity shown by local people despite their hardship.
Linda has worked at St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, which is part of the Romero Catholic Academy, for more than 20 years and will bring everything she learns in India back into the classroom in Coventry.
She said: “After taking part as a teaching fellow last year, I knew straight away that I wanted to do it again. I had an incredible time, especially as my daughter Sophie also took part as a fellow and we were able to teach together.
“I learnt so much, and the people were just fantastic – even though they were dealing with huge challenges and poverty.
“The schools don’t have any of the resources that we have, and teachers had to deal with incredibly large classes of children.
“This year will be very different, they have a completely different education system and we must tailor what we do around this.
“I learnt so much from my experience last year and I was able to pass this knowledge on to the children by leading assemblies and bringing elements such as culture and music into other lessons and I will be doing the same this year. I also learnt a lot about the latest teaching techniques from some of the younger fellows.
“I want to be a role model for the children at St John Fisher and show the benefits of celebrating positive differences and contributing to society.”
