Report on ROOF's Work in Podolsk Orphanage, November 2009
In the 2009-2010 school year there are 31 children in Podolsk Orphanage, 17 of them study at different grade levels. They are taught by ROOF teachers on a regular basis:
- Russian Language and Literature – Ludmila Vasilievna Rumyantseva
- Mathematics - Nikolay Vasilievich Glushkov
- Physics - Olga Vladimirovna Zotova
- Chemistry and Biology – Elena Davidovna Antonyuk
- Computer Science – Yury Vladimirovich Grablev
- Foreign Language – Nadezhda Vasilyevna Epifanova
- and also Natasha, the dance teacher.
These students attend a mainstream school:
- Grade 5 - Nikita
- Grade 6 – Sasha, Misha
- Grade 7 – Igor, Igor, Misha, Sergey
- Grade 8 – Kristina, Kirill, Zhenya, Ilya, Anya
- Grade 9 – Anya, Sonya
- Grade 10 – Andrey
A few students are taking an individual study course, they are
Andrey (Gr. 6, 16 years old),
Ilya (Gr. 7, 15 years old).
Andrey and Masha attend Grade 9 of an evening school.
Compared to the last school year 10 children continue to study with ROOF's teachers. In general, last year we had more students than this year. It is easily explained by the fact that this school year has a few difficult students: some of them fall behind their age group academically, some have developmental problems, for which reason they were sent to the individual study courses. Several children have social problems. All of these difficulties seem easily overcome because of the everyday effort of the ROOF teachers, the results are a great success: student marks for the 2008 - 2009 school year were good, with no bad marks at all. Anya, Kristina, Misha and Igor completed the previous school year with the best results (without "satisfactory" marks).
All the students advanced to the following grade level. Sergey, Sergey, Nastya, Nastya, Nastya and Elena who graduated 9th grade in 2008 - 2009 school year entered various technical schools.
This was a tremendous success achieved by a common effort of both teachers and students. At first the reserve of knowledge was very limited, the students were less than eager to study. So, before starting anything, the teachers had to convince the children, e.g. Igor , Misha and Igor, that those were capable and clever students and had to demonstrate this. This was the pattern that was tried with every single student: before teaching anything a lot of explanation and persuasion was needed to show that studying was worthwhile. By the end of the second term we already could see that children wanted to get good marks.
This year we have 3 University students. Kolya studies at the Moscow Management Institute, Olga and Anna study at the Podolsk Cooperative Sports University, having previously completed a sports training college.
Anya , Anya and Katya are studying at the sports college. Sergey, Sergey, Nastya, Nastya, Nastya and Elena go to technical schools.
High schoolers, those who study in University, colleges and technical schools, have individual classes with teachers who help them to prepare for exams.
