Report on
Visit to UK by
Stanley Mugume, Head Teacher, Kijjabwemi Secondary School, Masaka, Uganda
Emmanuel Harerimana, Head Teacher, G.S. Kigeme A, Rwanda
and visit to Uganda by Jayne Dear, Deputy Head Teacher
as part of the British Council Connecting Classrooms Project.
Introduction
It was with great pleasure that Stanley Mugume and Emmanuael Harerimana were welcomed to Woodlands School and Jayne Dear was welcomed to Kijabbwemi School after many months of communicating by email. The face to face visits certainly helped to cement the relationships built up and enabled us to plan in more detail for the future of the project.
Curricular and Leadership Activities
Participants engaged in the following curricular and leadership activities:
Tour of the school
Lesson observation
Pupil shadow
Learning walk
Department meeting
Presentation to pupils/question and answer
A day with a department of choice
Visit to a feeder primary school.
Participants were able to share good practice on school development planning, pedagogy, teaching and learning, assessment, behaviour management, managing staff performance, liaison with parents/community/outside agencies.
Jayne Dear and Stanley Mugume compared notes about dealing with a building programme as both are currently experiencing this process.
It was agreed that we would work together on materials to encourage more differentiation, critical thinking and independent learning.
Whilst it was acknowledged that the African schools are very different to the UK school in terms of access to resources and that this influences teaching and learning, it was acknowledged that we can learn from each other. The UK school was very impressed by the extremely positive attitudes to learning witnessed in the Ugandan school during the visit, in spite of difficult circumstances, such as large class sizes and a lack of resources compared to the UK school.
Joint Projects
Earlier in the year a Uganda Workshop was held during ‘Activities Week’ which included drumming. An art club has swapped images of home with the African schools and English Classes have a pen pal scheme operating.
Visiting each other’s schools gave us the opportunity to work on the development of these projects and explore new projects that we could work on together.
Pupil Leadership
The Woodlands Junior Leadership Team has linked with the Kijjabwemi Leadership Team to carry out joint projects. Kijjabwemi Secondary School’s Leadership Team shared their reporting systems with the Woodlands Leadership Team who will adopt a similar system. Pupils at Woodlands were able to use money that they had raised during fund raising to respond to some of the items on the Kijjabwemi “wish list” which included the purchase of 24 new black board rubbers, and netballs and footballs for P.E which is not currently a subject on the curriculum.
Conclusion
Both Mr Mugume and Mr Harerimana of Kigeme Secondary School in Rwanda, thanked Woodlands staff and students for the warm welcome that they received.
Jayne Dear’s visit to Uganda also met with a very heartfelt welcome from the entire community. She was very impressed by the very positive attitude to learning that she saw at the Kijjabwemi Secondary School.
All participants felt the visit was an uplifting and enriching experience which they feel will greatly enhance the opportunities offered by the project to all schools involved.