You know your class is too big when...

So we are now a month in to the school year, and I came across a clear sign of the fact that I have a big class. My class of 58 form 2s shrunk to a class of 55 in one day. How did this happen? Three of my students were imaginary!!

In American schools you are always given official rosters and attendance is taken on the computer (or put in to the computer). In Canandaigua schools they even have all the kids pictures on the computer! In Malawi, not so much. The "official list" was developed by simply asking students their names, and a teacher writing them down (often with misspellings). Combine this with 55 kids in a classroom, names I can't pronounce, and every kid, (boys and girls) having the same haircut, mistakes were bound to happen.

So, the imaginary students...
Terah Button is the same person as Tereza Batani.
Stephen Mandela is Stephano Frank.
Aliness Jahn is Aliness Gilson

In my defence, many Americans have nicknames, but we don't come up with a nick name for our surname!! One of my students Omar Sait's real name is Saiti Umali. He just decided to give himself a new name this year.

The good news of all this confusion was that the class hw completion increased in my grade book. Both Terah Button and Tereza Batnani had only done 1/2 their assignments! (this was also one of my major clues that something was fishey)

As a way of combating this large class (keep in mind I'm still trying to teach them Maths) I've split the kids up into 3 smaller groups (low,medium, and high skill level, but the kids don't know this) and require them to come in for an extra period of Maths during lunch one day a week. Although, I'll still have to struggle with getting every kid to come, I love that I have the power to do it. This would never fly with American kids. Then again, if I was in America I probably wouldn't have a class of 55 low level kids that can barely speak English.

We'll have our first Football and Netball matches against another school on Sunday. We got a letter from the sports captain at Mangochi Private Sec. School requesting a match, and I told our sports captain, he could write a letter back accepting. Both the kids and I are quite excited. I also wanted to include one random tidbit about our football team. Alex (one of the kids) obtained a pair of cleats. His best friend Praise is left footed, they now both play with one shoe!

I promise to post some more pictures next time.