Two and a half hours on three weekday mornings for sixteen weeks, taught by women throughout, with no men in the building during those hours apart from the caretaker.
Recitation first, each student heard in turn. Then reading and the rules of recitation together. Then memorisation for those doing it and quiet reading for those who are not, because about a third of the group came to read well rather than to memorise and nobody has to choose.
Mornings were chosen after two years of failed afternoons. Children come home, and a programme that collides with that loses women in week five who then feel bad about it. Children under school age may come and sit at the back on the mat, but there is nobody here to watch them, so their mother is watching them.