Barry Comprehensive School

School Band	Welcome banner

As we set off from the school on the 1st of July, I knew my second visit to Sri Lanka would be an eventful one. When I visited our partner school back in March, with Help Lanka and the British Council, I was nervous and excited. This time I was leading a group of ten volunteers, including Karen Walters (Head of Creative Arts), Kathleen Davies (SEN Teacher) and Claire Robinson (PGCE Art student) as well as six Barry 6th Form students who had gone through a rigorous application process to be selected. In the run up to our visit, students undertook a number of fundraising activities including bag backing at Tesco and a very successful chocolate raffle to raise money for our partner school Maliyadewa Vidyalaya, a rural school in the South of Sri Lanka. We were able to provide the school with the following:

• New printer
• Supplies of paper (treated like gold dust!)
• Metal cupboards to store resources
• Equipment for the agriculture department
• A set of atlas'
• Two laptops
• Digital Camera
• Art supplies
• Stationery
• Shoes for all pupils without them
• Special needs resources
• Sports equipment and kits

Miss Allen at the start of our welcome party. The whole school lined the approach to the school	Miss. Walters teaching English and Drama to Grade 11	Luke Williams working with Miesha

We would like to thank everyone who donated resources, time and money. It has made a big difference at the school and all the teachers and pupils are very grateful for your support. We are also very grateful to the staff and pupils at Maliyadewa Vidyalaya who made us feel very welcome and embraced us and our ideas with enthusiasm. We are committed to the long-term partnership between our two schools and are already planning a return visit next July. If you would like to know more about Help Lanka, please visit HelpLanka
Miss Allen

Members of the team contributed the following thoughts and impressions about their adventure:

“Team Sri Lanka had little over a month to prepare for the trip. During that time we came in every day after their exams, sitting in on and even teaching lessons! We crammed in some fundraising with collection buckets at the School's Presentation Evening, a raffle and even our parents got involved, holding a tea & cake sale! We also successfully encouraged people to donate sports equipment, CD players, stationary and even laptops! We were keen that as many of the younger pupils as possible got involved so we set up a pen pal system for Year 7 pupils and raised awareness of the charity Help Lanka. Hopefully, this will help develop a long term link between our schools and the younger pupils involved now may one day be travelling to Mawadawila and meeting their pen pals!”
Matt Moore

Ben Phipps with SEN class	Matt Moore's first lesson

“We stepped out of the airport door and were hit by a wave of heat after our exhausting 12 hour plane journey from London Heathrow. We then met our ‘HelpLanka' contacts, Nalinda, Lahiru, and Sam - who would be our guides for the next two weeks. As we arrived in the school, the children lined the driveway clapping as we walked through. We were then presented with ceremonial tealeaves as a mark of respect. The school band proceeded to play the Sri Lankan national anthem and the whole school began to sing. It was then our turn to return this gesture by singing the Welsh national anthem. Once we had finished, the school raised both the Welsh, and Sri Lankan flags side by side. The kids then crowded around us, wanting to shake our hands and give us high-fives. They were beaming from ear to ear and were very eager to learn, asking us to come to their class so we could teach them. When the time came to leave the school for the day, we all felt we did not want to leave, but we did, knowing we would be back again the following day.”
Luke Williams

“I mostly worked over in the primary school with pupils in Grade 2, 3 & 4. I taught the pupils about colour, teaching them the colours in the colour wheel, animals and body parts. From this we then taught workshops to include mask making, face painting, which they loved, butterfly and finger painting and the parachute game. The pupils were excited and eager to learn. They really enjoyed the different activities which were very different from their norm. In the afternoons we also taught at an extra afternoon school tuition class where primary age pupils are sponsored through Help Lanka to improve their studies and English. We also taught them about the colour wheel and ended playing ‘twister'. The pupils and teacher enjoyed the varied fun concepts”
Claire Robinson (PGCE Art)

Laura Stone receiving a ceremonial leaf as part of the welcome ceremony	Rhoshan doing a Maths activity	Miss Robinson teaching Art in the primary section

“The charity that we volunteered for in Sri Lanka was called HelpLanka. It was set up following the tsunami in 2004 to help those who had been affected by its adverse effects. HelpLanka's focus is on helping children through the education system, and our role as volunteers was to support the teaching in our partner school. Our programme in Sri Lanka was overseen by two of HelpLanka's regional co-ordinators, Nalinda and Lahiru De Silva, who provided assistance, along with many laughs.”
Guy Swallow

“I knew it would be a life changing experience, but nothing prepared me for the first day of teaching. Faced with a sea of happy, smiling faces I just knew that classes 11a and 11b were going to be a challenge way beyond my expectations. The boys were excited and the girls were quietly waiting for me to begin. Their English teacher, Mr. Tilercunerutna, a reserved and quiet gentleman, with the “Queen's English” spoken very correctly, looked as nervous as me. Drama broke the ice and role-play played an important part in the teaching of English. We wrote a play about pollution, wrote new lyrics for an ABBA song and spent our lessons rehearsing for the leaving concert. Even Mr. Tilercunerutna took part and pupils and teacher became stars for the day. Their achievements were great and it was a proud moment.”
Karen Walters (Drama Teacher)

Miss. Allen teaching the SEN class, wearing a sari	Sam Harris teaching a year 9 class about ICT

“A moving moment occurred with two young boys with autism who usually spent most of their time outside the classroom looking in. When approached their heads went down and they wouldn't look at you. I liaised with Mr. Jaggard, a year 5 teacher who had been attempting to establish a special needs class for some time. He was delighted to have support for his initiative and quickly found a room for pupils including the brothers with autism, their older sister, younger brother and mother with nursing baby all of whom had varying degrees of special need. News spread of the presence of a special needs teacher and a profoundly deaf young lady and her family came seeking advice. Miusha had completed her education and could sign and lip read Sinhalese well but could not find employment because of local prejudice which I couldn't change over night. But she proved a very able learning support assistant in the special needs class so chipping away considerably at the prejudice. Help Lanka will support her continued involvement with the SEN pupils at the school.

Finally, we visited an institution for women with learning difficulties in Morotwa, a suburb of Colombo, which was having great difficulty in making ends meet. The women were aged between 12 and 50 years, many of them abandoned by their parents. They lived in shared dormitories, with little stimulation yet appeared happy. They were just so pleased to have company and people to relate to. This to me was the most moving experience of all and I hope to be able to continue my involvement with this group in particular.”
Kathleen Davies (SEN Teacher)

Julian Hobbs at sports	Turtle Sanctuary, part of the school trip

“After teaching in the school in the day, we would spend a couple of hours playing games with the children. We got all the children involved in football, rugby and cricket, although most of the time they were showing us how to really catch and bat a cricket ball. Often we found ourselves embarrassed after being caught out first ball, only to see the 10-year-old children thump the ball into the trees. The children loved the interaction, and would check every morning that we would be playing on the field in the afternoon. One memorable experience was when one afternoon whilst we were having a huge game of football, the heavens opened up with torrential rain. However the children were eager to keep playing; so we played on, sliding and splashing about in the newly flooded field. This was a great example of how much the children appreciated our visit and help.”
Sam Harris

“After spending seven days in school, we took a selection of pupils on a school trip to a Sri Lankan Mask Museum, a Turtle Sanctuary and on a boat ride near Ambalangoda. The children were chosen by the teachers of Maliyadewa, and included those who were most helpful to us during our visit. At the mask museum the pupils could see how traditional masks were made and along with a vast collection of masks, some over 200 years old. At the turtle sanctuary the children could hold turtles as young as one day old; they could also see how turtles with injuries, some from the tsunami, were being rehabilitated. On the boat trip the forty pupils were split into five boats and transported to a Buddhist temple on a small island. There they were talked to by a monk and they prayed. They were also given a tour of the temple and the monk's quarters. After the return trip from the temple we had an emotional goodbye, we exchanged addresses and hand shakes before the pupils got back onto their school bus, some pupils even shed a tear. We then waved off the pupils before setting off ourselves.”
Ben Phipps

Help Lanka Team at the Japanese Peace Pagoda in Unawatuna	Two year 6 pupils (Dilki and Dilhini) who helped us throughout the trip