A dozen teachers from SAI International School attend a 3 day British Council Core Skills Training session from Feb 5 – 7, 2018. Delegates from eight Schools participated along with SAI. Teachers from all subjects including Math, English, SST and the Sciences capitalized on this intense course taking this new knowledge back to their classrooms in their separate schools.

As a British Council Ambassador School we support Core Skills advancement in our community so when asked to coordinate this programme at our school we gladly agreed.  The British Council implemented this course in 2015. It is a three year programme that helps teachers identify and implement six core skills including critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and imagination, digital literacy, citizenship, students leadership and personal development and collaboration and communication into their teaching routines.

The group completed the Introduction to Core Skills Course and will have completed the advanced training module on critical thinking and problem solving (CTPS) once they present their completed lesson plans in April along with their reflections write up.

Purnendu Chandra Singh Deo, Biology Teacher at SAI International School said “The Core Skills Programme rejuvenated the desire to have a re-look into the teaching learning methods being used by me. It gave me a good insight into lesson planning and taught me to make it more effective”.

Teachers were separated into five teams that had to present on the spot lessons plans that had to show case all the parameters of CTPS. Constructive feedback was given to each group on how effective their lesson planning was in sparking deep thinking in students. Many CTPS activities were demonstrated as group activities. Each teacher walked away from this training with a basic theoretical understanding critical thinking and problem solving and new ways to developed leadership, project management, and self evaluation techniques to embed critical thinking and problem solving into their daily practice. Core Skills Training also challenged teachers to identify opportunities within their schools to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills enhancing child centric learning.

Our final activity and farewell !

Group Picture