"Will you join in our crusade!"

The past three days have been the most challenging and exciting so far in terms of the LRTT course. We have been delivering our sessions to the 32 Teach For Nepal Fellows; the first cohort of their kind in Nepal. They are such a dedicated and skilled group of teachers so we had to raise our game for these sessions!

Following our relaxing break in Chitwan National Park, Saturday evening saw us up until midnight preparing for the start of the second round of LRTT training, which we would be delivering to 32 Teach For Nepal fellows. These 32 teachers are considered to be some of the best graduates in Nepal, having been selected from over 800 applicants.  They had already completed a six week summer institute and been teaching for three months, and LRTT formed the final four days of their Mini Learning Institute (MiLI), so we felt a lot of pressure the night before.

The tension was relieved when, during Tom’s opening speech, his height conflicted with the low Nepali light-fitting, smashing two of the lamps in front of the Teach For Nepal Fellows, resulting in a lot of laughter and setting us off to a fantastic series of training sessions.  Half of us remained at Teach for Nepal House, training 16 teachers from the comfort of cushions on the floor, while the other half had the unique experience of training in the local monastery, watched over by golden statues of Buddha in his many forms. At the end of the day and Tom's second, very public collision with the light fitting, both groups headed out for drinks and snacks next to a temple in Patan. The stories that the TFN Fellows were recalling about their schools were stunning us- two day walks from the capital and a rickety cable car over a river were some highlights.

The next four days were a great opportunity for us to share everything we’d learnt from our first two years of teaching and for us to learn much more about the daily challenges faced by the inspirational fellows. One session involved a discussion of the soft-skills that their students needed then molded them into play-dough; this resulted in some bright red graduates and a figure of Buddha!

We were excited on the final day to be able to adapt the LRTT training and deliver tailored sessions designed to help the fellows maximise their effectiveness in the classroom.  We have set up Action Research groups with the fellows and ourselves so that we can work across our contexts to improve our practice across a range of areas, from differentiation to how to improve the independence and motivation of learners. This idea is a brave step and it might not work at all but it is one of the most important parts of the LRTT course that we ran. We're hoping that this will have a huge impact on the sustainability of LRTT and guide future courses.

As well as this, Jack gave us a brief introduction to coaching on Tuesday evening so that we could coach the fellows during a one hour session on Wednesday.  We spent Tuesday evening practising the skills Jack taught us on each other, which gave us a lot of food for thought, as well as helping us to form action plans to problems that we didn’t even realise we had! Specifically, we learnt how to say "So, what is bubbling up inside you?" with just the right amount of intonation to get a response! Coaching the fellows on Wednesday was a really interesting experience and hopefully valuable for the fellows in terms of addressing some of the very real challenges they face at their schools. We could not believe how exhausting the coaching process could be!

We then filed into the restaurant next door for the LRTT closing ceremony.  Speeches were given by Jack, Tom, Shisir, Swastika and the District Education Official, and the LRTT team continued the great LRTT tradition of closing with a song – this time the Les Miserables finale beneath the Nepali flag that Shisir had provided us with especially for the occasion!

We’ve had a really rewarding experience working with the Teach for Nepal fellows: four enjoyable days of work that didn’t seem like work; new friends made and inspiration for us to take back to our own classrooms in the UK.