Grades one and two share a room and a teacher, which is how a school with ninety four children and four classrooms works.
What that looks like in practice. The two grades are taught separately for reading, writing and mathematics, in two groups, with one group working independently while the other is taught. They are taught together for Islam, for Dhivehi stories, for art, for the garden and for physical activity. The teacher is teaching two lessons at once for about half the day, which is real work and is why this class has the smallest numbers in the school.
The absolute rule in this room is that every child is heard reading aloud, by an adult, every single day. Not twice a week. Every day. Sixteen children at four minutes each is an hour, split between the class teacher, the office staff, the principal and, for twenty minutes, the grade five and six children. In a school of ninety four this is possible, and it is the single biggest advantage we have over a large school.
Books go home every night in a plastic wallet. A ruined book is replaced without any charge or any conversation, because a family that fears a charge stops taking books home.
What a parent can do: listen, every night, out loud, for fifteen minutes. That is the whole request and it matters more than anything else in these two years.