GROUP ACTIVITY: INSTRUCTIONS TO APPLICANT

Reading time: 4 minutes

NAME OF APPLICANT: ________________________________________

DATE: __________________________

Background: You are all teachers at Government Girls Secondary School- Islamabad and are also members of the school’s Senior
Leadership Team (SLT). On average, you find your students of Class 6 behind their grade level in all subjects. In English and Maths
the students are more significantly behind in other subjects such as Science and Urdu. You decided to hold remedial extra classes
for all problematic areas, with small groups of students, during two slots of the day which have no classes scheduled. You can hold
these before school, during break or after school.

Additional information: On average, students at your school are performing about 4 years behind in English, 3 years behind in
Mathematics and 2 years behind in Science and Urdu. Students’ Matric results in this school have been historically low with only a
handful of students passing (with a C grade at best). In higher grades, the class sizes steadily decrease as students drop out
between grades and at various points during the year. Few parents attend school events or meet with teachers and are rarely
invited. The school day starts at 7:30 AM and ends at 1:30 PM with a 30-minute break at 11 AM. On average, most teachers have
only one free period per day.

Part A: Individually, please answer the following question in the space below (4 mins):

1. How would you organize your schedule to find time for the remedial class? What system would you use?
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2. Assuming you had to conduct all the remedial classes yourself, what would be the timetable for these classes? (Think
of how many classes per day, per week and the frequency of a subject)?
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Part B: For the next part of the Activity, also consider this new information:

The Principal has disallowed for any students to stay back after 1:30 PM due to a concern of their safety and the consequent
school liability. The Principal also does not think that these after school classes are necessary, especially given that all teachers
have a heavy workload during the school day and this would require all staff, including the Principal, to stay back for another
hour. The Principal has called a staff meeting to discuss this further.

In a group, discuss and determine a plan of action that you would present to the Principal, in order to convince him to allow
this after school class to continue. Consider questions listed below as a guide but you are not required to answer them or limit
the discussion to them.
You have 10 minutes to prepare as a group and then 7 minutes for the discussion with the Principal
One group member is required to take notes and hand in the plan
One staff member will be playing the role of the Principal in the discussion
- What are the potential responsibilities that each of you could play during this meeting?
- As teachers, who else would you seek support from or work with to convince the Principal?
- What are the possible factors affecting the Principal’s decision?
- What are the key arguments you would present to the Principal?