It was back to classroom for over 100 teachers and principals from city schools as they exchanged notes on how best to engage students in a class and bring out their critical thinking and creative skills.

The workshop hosted by the British Council, Reflection of Core Skills, was part of Connecting Classrooms, a global education programme that makes students globally aware and competitive. The core skills identified by British Council and its teachers included communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and imagination, student leadership and personal development and citizenship and digital literacy.

The workshop began with a discussion on "How schools can contribute to the employability skills of students". On the panel were Vandana Lulla, the director of Podar International School in Mumbai, Debalina Mitra Chanda, a consultant, Arunabh Singh, the director of innovation at Nehru World School in Ghaziabad, and Moushumi Banerjee, the principal of Adamas World School. The discussion was moderated by Sujata Sen, former director (East India) of British Council.

Chanda spoke of how some boys would hate attending their Hindi class before the teacher allowed them to play football during the period. Only, two of them would have to step aside and give a live commentary of the game in Hindi.

"That's how core skills and teaching went side by side. We also need to communicate the core skills to the students for their better understanding," she said.