British teacher visits SLS schools

Rawalpindi
An exchange teacher from the United Kingdom spent one week on teaching and training at Sadeeqa’s Learning System (SLS) Montessori & High School, says a press release.
Mr. Dominic Whitehead, a teacher at Cromwell Academy in Cambridgeshire came to Islamabad for a week long reciprocal visit under the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme.
Earlier, in November a SLS teacher had visited Cromwell Academy for the reciprocal visit, which is funded by the British Council. Mr. Whitehead’s visit marks the eighth successful reciprocal visit for SLS School since 2006. The British Council provides funding for a teacher exchange reciprocal visit when a Pakistani school and UK school have established a successful partnership on a joint curriculum basis.
A Geography teacher by profession, Mr. Whitehead spent every day at a different campus of SLS School taking world geography classes with graders 6 and 7. He had prepared his lessons beforehand and brought visual aids and fun educational activities for the students. The pivotal thing he tried to teach was the importance of engaging the students in the lesson as opposed to the widely accepted and preferred style of teachers dictating lessons in Pakistan. Instead of students individually doing their work on their desks, Mr. Whitehead encouraged them to discuss the question and come up to the board to write their thoughts and answers.
Students and teachers at all the campuses warmed up to the idea immediately and actively engaged in the discussions and activities. The highlight of the world geography class was the labelling and making of a small paper globe by hand. A beautiful piece of art in itself, the globes the students made were also a reminder about how vast the world is, how many different kinds of people live in it, and how we all only have this one planet to coexist with each other.
Students and teachers were curious about Mr. Whitehead visiting Pakistan at a time when terrorism and school security is under debate to which Mr. Whitehead said that the reward of visiting Pakistan and interacting with its youth was far greater than any potential security threats.
At a staff meeting, SLS Schools Director. Asiya Talha said that it was a matter of great pride that SLS was successfully continuing partnerships through Connecting Classrooms and that Mr. Whitehead was not only an exchange teacher at SLS but a guest of Pakistan. The school staff had arranged for Mr. Whitehead to explore as much of Rawalpindi and Islamabad as possible. After school hours Mr. Whitehead got to visit a new place every day, from the famous Tench Bhata bazaar to the breathtaking sites of Taxila.