A group of 11 students accompanied by Roger Woodward and Kalpana Agarwal travelled to India for 13 days in early April. On arrival at Agra on the first day, after an early morning visit to the Taj Mahal, an Indian train strike forced a change of plans at the last minute and a two-day coach journey to Jodhpur stopping overnight at Jaipur which gave the unexpected opportunity for a brief visit to the hilltop palace, reached by elephant transport. We moved on Jodhpur and stayed for a week at the SKSN school nearby. At the school, more than 500 boys and girls, all of whom are physically challenged through polio or amputation, are joined by a small number from the local village. Sevenoaks pupils organised fundraising for the school before they left the UK and prepared lessons in English for the pupils there. Knowledge of English is very basic, but all the pupils were very keen to learn and to meet and socialise with Sennockians.

In addition to the lessons our pupils took part in two cricket matches and enjoyed watching India beat New Zealand during the world cup - to the enormous delight of the Indian pupils. Our group also enjoyed a day looking round the palace and city of Jodhpur as well as local trips for camel riding. While at the school we discussed how to distribute the £4000 raised by our pupils and agreed with SKSN that this could be used to fund an additional English teacher for two years, to provide new electric fans for teaching and residential rooms and, having watched the cricket on a small poor-quality television, to provide new flat screen TVs for the boys' and girls' recreational areas at the school.

Our trip ended with an overnight train journey to Delhi and a day looking round the sights and shopping. It was quite something to be in the city when India beat Pakistan in the cricket semi-final; much more than a cricket match to the Indians. The whole city lit up with fireworks when it ended with an Indian win!