Easter Lunch
Ten of the seventeen ADAPT School Project volunteers met for our annual Easter lunch on April 14th in the Asia Restaurant in San Javier. It was a lovely, long lunch that was topped off with a fun quiz. Our photo shows some of the volunteers enjoying their coffee after the quiz.
The School Monitors’ Project is now in its 6th year and has volunteers in five schools in San Pedro and Lo Pagan giving support with reading, general conversation and pronunciation in the English classes.
We are now looking for volunteers for the start of the new school year in September as two of our long-standing monitors are retiring. If you have 2 hours a week to spare and you are interested in helping local children develop their English language skills, please see Eithne at the ADAPT meeting on Saturday 7th May for a copy of our guidelines.
Eithne and Nicky
Facilitators
Cultural Experiences
As well as helping children in the schools with English, our monitors also enjoy sharing and exchanging cultural experiences and traditions and in preparation for Easter our photos shows some of the decorated eggs and model figures made by the children in Villa Alegría primary school in San Pedro.
Our annual School Monitors’ Easter Lunch and quiz will take place on 14th April in Restaurante Asia in San Javier. After a busy Spring term in school this is a great opportunity for all our volunteers to get together over a long lunch and enjoy a fun quiz. If you are interested in becoming a school monitor, and have two hours a week to spare, please see Eithne or Nicky after the ADAPT meeting on Saturday 2nd April for an information sheet.
Eithne and Nicky
Facilitators ADAPT School Monitors’ Project
Hallowe’en
The School Monitors Project has just added two new monitors to our team and we will soon be helping students in 30 classes in the schools in San Pedro/Lo Pagán.
As well as helping children with English our monitors enjoy sharing cultural experiences and traditions with the schools and one of our volunteers, Laura, with some of the teachers from Nuestra Senora del Carmen primary school recently dressed up as witches for Hallowe’en.
Registration
On 1st July, the ADAPT school monitors were welcomed in a ceremony at the San Pedro Town Hall for their registration as Voluntarios in the primary schools of San Pedro del Pinatar. This occasion also doubled as a Town Hall thank you to Nicky Kehoe, one of our Monitor Coordinators, for providing a significant quantity of portable sports equipment to the San Pedro sports council. Nicky donated this equipment via her animal charity Little Pod.
The new Sports and Volunteering Councillor, Daniel Perez, and the new Councillor for Citizens Participation, Fuensanta Garcia, thanked the monitors for their continued work with the schools’ English teachers and also thanked ADAPT for their further involvement in the community through Library Storytelling for children, School Plays and the ADAPT conversation class in Spanish and English. Last, but by no means least, Fuensanta highlighted the ADAPT Pantomime as further evidence of our integration into the Spanish Community.
The photograph above is taken from the San Pedro Town Hall website, where the event was published for the community. The photo shows the ADAPT school monitors with Fuensanta Garcia (orange top), Daniel Perez and Eva Gonzalez (far right).
Following on from the ADAPT Theatre group’s success with the School Plays in May, and their appearance in the Town Hall website, this marks two major achievements for our Association in 2015.
Many thanks to our School Monitors for their attendance and their patience during the lead up to this registration process. It was all worthwhile in the end !
Back to School with Adapt
Many children have to go to school in San Pedro without the basic proper equipment, we are not in a position to help financially with their school books, which incidentally cost approximately 200+ euros per child per year, but we are in a position to help by supplying the fundamental tools for education. The committee has decided to use cash from the “Tonne of money” to equip those children, and with the help of the parents associations we will be able to identify those most in need when they re-start school in September.
Los Pinos School
One of the English teachers in Los Pinos primary school has sent this note of appreciation to the ADAPT School Monitors’ Project:
“In the last several years we have had the good fortune of working with the different volunteers from the ADAPT Association.
Their presence in the classroom has given us the opportunity to work with aspects of the English language that would normally be impossible without the aid of a native speaker.
Not only have they helped us work on proper English pronunciation and phrasing, but their presence has also introduced the students to a new culture (food, traditions, sports, festivities, music …) awakening a curiosity to learn more about the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.
Furthermore we would like to emphasize the importance of the connection created between the students and our volunteers over the course of these years. The students have grown to love them !
Finally, we the teachers would like to thank our volunteers for taking time out of their day to help us, showing us how we can improve our English, and keeping us sane on the days where the workload was just too much !
Thank you so much for your help.
Your kindness and hard work does not go unrecognized.
Bilingual Program Coordinator at CBM Los Pinos”
This is a brilliant endorsement of what our School Monitors are quietly doing for the Spanish Community, week in, week out. We are always seeking new Volunteers as School Monitors, so if you have some spare time in the week and would like to take part, please contact Nicky and/or Eithne at our monthly meetings or email secretaryadapt@outlook.com.
Eithne & Nicky
Easter Lunch
Twelve of the eighteen ADAPT School Project volunteers met for their annual Easter lunch on March 26th in the Asia Restaurant in San Javier. It was a lovely, long lunch that was topped off with a fun quiz and prizes. John and Irene Frame joined them for coffee afterwards. John thanked the volunteers for all their hard work in the schools and stressed how important their contribution was to both the schools and to helping achieve one of ADAPT’s key goals of promoting integration in the community.
The Project is now in its 5th year and has volunteers in four schools in San Pedro and Lo Pagan giving support in the English classes with reading, general conversation and pronunciation.
A School Monitor’s experience
“My name is Laura. I come from England. I now live here in Spain. I would like to visit you in
school every week, in your English class, to speak to you and help you with your English school
books”.
This is how I introduced myself to a class of 8 year olds four and a half years ago, on my first day as an
‘ADAPT’ School Monitor. I stayed with this class for three years until they left for secondary school. I got to work with them and to know them all.
As a school monitor you need no teaching experience, just a love of what you’re doing and making learning
English fun. The school books used are varied in content including sections on spies (as in 007) and food (as in trifle).
The day we worked on the spy section, 006 and 008 were invented with child
spies dressing up. 006 wore a blue jacket, a black hat and carried a map. 008 wore a red jacket,
blue gloves, and carried a folded newspaper. For the food section, we brought one trifle in to the
school and another was made in front of the class so the students could see how easy it was to make.
At the end of the lesson the children sampled the trifles with much approval and requests for more !
These are just two examples of the fun I have had with very grateful children who love to hear an
English voice and to interact with you. The joy I feel when, for example, I am out shopping in Eroski
and a child runs up to me to say hello and introduce their family to me IN ENGLISH, is indescribable.
Having done four years in Los Pinos school in San Pedro, I am now at a new school in Lo Pagan and
I’m thoroughly enjoying it. The children soak up information like little sponges and are longing to
speak English.
Back to School
The ADAPT School Monitors’ Project is now starting its fifth school year.
This Project continues to be a real success story and is a very practical demonstration of Adapt’s goal of integration with the local community.
If you have a few hours to spare each week and would like to be involved in this worthwhile project please contact Eithne at eithne.lawler@gmail.com
School Monitors
The new school year got off to a flying start for our school monitors with TRIFLES, WITCHES and VAMPIRES !!! In Los Pinos primary school volunteers Laura Moulson and Margaret Noden shared English trifles with the students of 6A and 6B and Margaret actually made a trifle in the classroom to show the students how it’s done.
Volunteers Dorothy Friend and Sandra & Steve Ramsay got into the Hallowe’en spirit in Las Esperanzas dressing up as witches and a vampire along with some of the students who dressed up in various costumes. Great fun was had by everyone. On the 11th November, 13 of the volunteers met for an early pre-Christmas lunch in Restaurante Asia in San Javier. It was a lovely, long get-together that was enjoyed by everyone and it was topped off with a fun quiz and prizes. The School Monitors’ Project is now starting its fourth school year and has a total of 16 volunteers and 2 facilitators, helping in 27 classes in three schools in San Pedro – Los Pinos, Las Esperanzas and Maspalomas. Our volunteers give support with reading, general conversation and pronunciation and work in conjunction with the formal course under the direction of the English teachers. The Project is a very practical demonstration of ADAPT’s goal of integration with the local community. The schools are delighted with the help the students receive and the volunteers find it an enjoyable and very rewarding experience.
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