The Ukieri team with students and staff of Kashidih High School. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Feb. 12: Lessons can be learnt outside classrooms as well, as Cheer would let one know.

Cheer — consisting of “clusters” (read groups) of Indian and British schools — is an initiative started by the British Council.

The programme divides schools into teams (clusters), each comprising six Indian and four British institutions and promotes an exchange of thoughts between clusters and within clusters through exchange programmes and dialogues.

While a team of Jamshedpur principals had previously visited the UK, this time a team from Bristol (UK) is visiting the steel city, as a part of an UK-India Education & Research Initiative (Ukieri) programme.

The three teachers yesterday paid a visit to Mosodih village in Seraikela-Kharsawan with local students in tow.

Cheer involves a particular cluster of which Jamshedpur Public School, JH Tarapore, Tarapore School (Agrico), DBMS Kadma High School, Kashidih High School and Baug-E-Jamshed are a part.

“The pace of a rural area is different. We loved coming here with the team of students,” said Simon Rowe from Waycroft School (Bristol).

Rowe explained, like the steel city students, pupils in his school have begun to take small steps towards conservation and protection.

Each Cheer cluster believes in five “R”s — reuse, reduce, recycle, refuse and rejoice.

The places that the team visited were model villages — at Mosadih, the residents had waged a war on gambling and promoted bio-gas fuel.

“We were rather happy to see the organic and energy-saving ways that have been implemented by the villagers. Perhaps, we can take tips from the residents here and implement the ways at home,” said Mark Lacy of Parson Street School, Bristol.

“Cheer’s cluster programme is wonderful. The teachers take the backseat here and children take the lead. And we are pretty impressed by the standard of English spoken here,” said Rowe.

“There are a lot of memories that we are taking back home with us, especially cricket bats, balls, kurtas and bangles,” said Lacy.