As a school we are always trying hard to improve our pupils understanding of the wider world. As well as our recent work on Afghanistan we are developing a link with a school near Mubende, Uganda. Helen Edwards, our ‘International Links School coordinator’, has worked extremely hard in securing funding for a reciprocal visit with the school. On the 31st of March, two of our staff, Helen Edwards and Lorraine Aston, will be heading out to Uganda to visit our link school. The Head Teacher from our link school, Mr Sabiiti will hopefully then visit us in the summer term.
Whilst out in Uganda, Helen and Lorraine will be teaching, visiting a range of schools, meeting local politicians and developing a joint school project on the theme of ‘food’.
This project will enable all pupils in our school to be involved in finding out about life for children in Uganda. Through the project, we want pupils to understand how food is grown and cooked in other countries and explore the similarities and differences in the methods used. We also want them to explore the similarities and differences between the food culture in this country and that of the pupils in our link school.
Our Link School – Katente West School
Katente West School has nothing like the resources and luxuries that we have here at Brookfields. There are 1000 pupils and just 13 members of staff. 140 of these pupils have special educational needs. Helen and Lorraine will be teaching some of the classes and in therefore, we are sending them over with all the resources they’ll need e.g. scissors, paint brushes, pencils, rulers. All the basic tools we take for granted but a luxury in Katente West.
Pupils at Brookfields have been fully involved in the pre4paration of this trip. On Thursday 17th and Friday 18th March we held a cake sale that raised over £200 to go towards buying resources for the school. The pupils on our School Council also came up with the fabulous, if ambitious fundraising idea of ‘Ride to Mubende’ which currently has raised £180.
The idea is to ‘travel’ the 4000 miles from Reading to Mubende, the nearest town to our link school in Uganda. Pupils and staff have been recording any movement based exercise that they take part in over a 4 week period ending on Thursday 31st March 2011. People have been cycling, swimming, walking, jogging, rowing, horse riding or any other variety of exercise that involves moving. Mr Maycock’s classroom has been turned into a gym with the kind support from Cotswold Sports Centre, West Berkshire School Sports Partnership, Mrs Hunt so a BIG THANK YOU to them.
We are all extremely grateful to all that have helped support us by donating money, gifts and support for our link school project.
We are very excited about the trip and look forward to learning about Lorraine and Helen’s adventures on their return.