Four schools visit MyFarm

MyFarm blog pdf2

What a time we had in The Gambia

There were so many highlights for this particular study visit to The Gambia organised by B and C Educational through their Global Dimension Partnership branch. We were delighted to meet 5 teachers from schools in Senegal who joined our group for 4 days. They took a full part in our activities and really enjoyed meeting our Gambian colleagues and going to their schools. It is to be hoped that functioning three way partnerships will develop from this meeting of minds. Already one of the Gambian teachers is planning her first trip to Senegal.

Our UN style conference for the International Day of Happiness (20 March) was held at Bakau Newtown Lower Basic with children from Wellingara and Tallinding also attending. After a series of educational activities supported by Gambian, Senegalese and UK teachers, the hotly debated topic was “Money can buy happiness”, position papers were presented by the 11 year old participants, delegates discussed the issues and a vote  was held. The Bakau UN assembly (i.e. the conference) decided that money does not buy happiness!

Another phonics session was shared with the Islamic teachers at Amana, and we worked with the undergraduate teacher trainees at the Gambia College, Brikama.

Cultural visits were made to Isatou’s compound where participants shared in eating excellent Gambian food fish benechin and fish domada) using their fingers, did sand painting and made batiks.  The photo shows Fatou and her mother Isatou in their compound.

At MyFarm the UK  teachers were enthralled by the work in sustainability, micro- agriculture and education by the charismatic Kelly Smeets.

The UK teachers were moved by the efforts of the quarry workers at Bafolotu Quarry and the hard work of the women at the Makumbuya Women’s Co-operative. The mangrove cruise, African dancing and local food at Makusutu Cultural Forest were a delight. The wrestling at Paradise Beach was more of a puzzle but an exciting finish to a particularly busy week packed with new experiences.

On Saturday morning some 45 children were taken on their first field trip where they visited Bijilo Forest Reserve (the Monkey Park) and the neighbouring  Atlantic beach.  In groups supprted by U K teachers the children investigated the flora and fauna of the two contrasting environments. Using an egg box to make a collection of shells proved a particular interest for the children.

Our next study visit will be in November 2015, please contact us if you are interested.

More adventures in education

Our next UN style children’s conference is fast approaching (12 March at Howley Grange Primary School). There is some anxiety as it doesn’t look probable that our Gambian visitors will be able to clear the visa applications in time. However we should at least have an electronic contribution straight from the heart of the Smiling Coast. The conference is thmed around the idea of Gross National Happiness as promtoed by the Himalyan state of Bhutan. We are very much looking forward to this event.

We are very much looking forward to our next Gambian trip in March with some 14 educationalists signed up (including one primary head, one primary deputy, 10 primary teachers and two academics). It seems likely that we will be finally meeting up with some of our Senegalese colleagues to begin the process of tripartite partnerships. We also hope to cement our relationship with AMANA, the Gambian Association of Arabic and Islamic Education. We have usually offered one-off training sessions for groups of their teachers but we a re planning a more strategic approach. The President of The Gambia has decreed that the Madrassa schools which formerly taught mostly in Arabic and on religious themes now have to teach English, Maths, Science and Environmental Studies in English and so there is much up-skilling of their teachers to be done.

Exciting start to 2015

B&C Educational have had an exciting start to the new year. Nettl of Birmingham (nettl.com) have just upgraded our website (www.primary-school-resources.com) and it went live and Friday, so we are looking forward to a flood of new orders for our educational resources. In any case our partnership with Wildgoose Education Ltd (www.wildgoose.ac/) is strong and they have been instrumental in encouraging reseller sales for us.

We have recruited well for the next Gambia Study Visit in March with six schools being part of the venture and 16 teachers ready to travel. Many of this schools have recieved funding from the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms Scheme and in addition to furthering their partnership work with Gambian schools, we are trying to develop links with certain Senegalese schools as well. Some Senegalese teachers will be able to share in seminars, workshops and school based activities with us in The Gambia. We also hope to undertake a careful needs analysis for those Muslim schools who are now required to teach English, Maths, Science and Environmental and Social Studies in English. We have been working with a educational development centre called Amana with some of these teachers but we hope to be able to develop a more strategic approach to out continuing professional development programme.

Some of the schools in our informal network in the West Midlands have been successful in securing Big Lottlery funds to enable them to develop a global dimesnion to their communities. This will involve us in more training and consultancy, and may well enhance our resource sales as well.

So at the start of 2015 all looks positive on each of the three strands of our business, resource development, consultancy and the Gambian programmes, if only we had shares to sell!

Gambia visit excitement mounts

Despite the random rumours emanating from WEst Africa, there are still no ebola officially recognised in The Gambia and the Global Dimension Partnership trip scheduled for mid November is going ahead. The Gambia has suffered from the ebola scare as fewer tourists have visited and there is less work for all people in the tourist-based industries. Neverthless we are doing our bit. We are holding a human rights respecting conference with the children in a lower basic school, we are sharing CPD with the association of Islamic teachers, and working with a large group of trainee teachers. The photo shows pupils from a lower basic school undertaking fieldwork in the Bijilo Forest Reserve, we shall be doing similar activities with another school at Abuko Nature Reserve this time. Some accompanying school teachers will be furthering their school partnerships and others hoping to embark on new partnership journeys. Our party of fourteeen educationalists will be employing two guides and three drivers during our sojourn. We will be visiting farms, recycling ‘factories’, batik makers and buying from the craft markets. Our next scheduled trip is in March please get in touch if you are interested in joining our ventures.

Ebola and The Gambia: we all need global education

The ebola crisis in Guinea, Sierra leone and Liberia has once again bought home how people in UK lack a sufficiently informed world view. With the high profile news coverage, it is clear that many people consider Africa to be one place, rather than a huge continent divided into some 58 sovereign and independent countries.

Because of the ebola scare tourism to The Gambia has reduced by 60%, although the nearest officially reported occurrence of the disease is some 500 miles from the Gambia border. This is a similar distance from UK to Switzerland.
Notwithstanding that, tourists visiting other parts of Africa are down in numbers. It is a very good time for cheap airline tickets to East Africa and South Africa! This does seem to be a non-sense.

Tourism a significant role in the economy of The Gambia and many of the local people rely on tourists as they work in restaurants, hotels, have market stalls, act as guides and do many other taks which rely on tourist money. For many this will be bad year, made worse by a harvest dimished by late rains.

At the moment visiting The Gambia is as safe as it was this time last year. The hair raising headlines about a dreadful disease 500 miles away has panicked people to stay away.
Worse still Gambian visitors to the UK have not been welcomed by their erstwhile genial hosts!

A large number of people have died, some 4,500, which is tragic and there are many ebola orphans. In the war zones of Syria and Iraq the death toll over the last three years is some 160,000 and the killing continues.

There are some 5 road deaths a day in the UK but do people stop driving? Some 1000 people die each year in London due to air pollution, but do people stop visiting London?

Ebola is a frightening disease, but at the moment its transmission is tortuous. It is spread by direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person (dead or alive). In West Africa it is the close kin and medical staff which are most affected, in Europe and USA it is health-workers who catch the disease. The disease is contained within the three West African countries, fortunately it has not gone viral.

People need a course of global citizenship education and risk analysis. They need education in interpreting the news media! The writer for one fully intends to visit the Gambia within the month.

China popular in the classroom if not in Hongkong

B&C Educational’s Chinese Resource Boxes have been flying off the shelf we are very pleased to report. This has surprised us since China no longer appears in the new primary curriculum for key stages 1 & 2. It does however appear in the KS 3 curriculum. What has brought on this surge in orders? We suggest that with China hitting the news more not only with its economic success story but also with its rather less encouraging stance on human rights, teachers are keen for their pupils to find out about China in their geography lessons. Our China Enquirer newspaper introduces readers to all aspect of China from its physical geography to its economic development and rapid industrialisation, but does have stories about its poor record on human rights. Our China resources do encourage pupils and students to gain an informed idea about China’s progress to enable them to interprete the news coming out of China and in the current case out of Hongkong.

Next Gambia study visit

We as the Global Dimension Partnership are now actively planning for the next Gambia study visit (19-26 November) and working with busy teachers is sometimes very difficult. Last week we were fully booked with 16 places, now two have had to drop out and we are looking around for eager participants.

As this is going on re-seller sales for our Locality Resources Packs are going from strength to strength. The African Locality Resources pack is the most popular but people are buying the China and India Resources Packs and the Amazonian Rainforest Pack is a close second to the African one.

And at the same time we are deep into the update of the LCP Geography Files; the publishers said update, but it is more of a re-write to keep pace with the demands of the new primary gerography curriculum.

Nevertheless we recognise that our primary teachers colleagues are in danger of burn out as they face the new Primary Curriculum, universal free school meals, and the new arrangements for SEND (Special Education Needs and Disability). A frantic week in THe Gambia in November might be a great antidote.

New primary curriculum, SMSC, the Global Dimension and more

INSET training at Northfield Road on Monday.  We demonstrated how it was possible to link together the global dimensions (interdependence, sustainable development,values and perceptions, social justice, diversity, human rights, global citizenship and conflict resolution), with the new history and geography primary curricula through the Spitirtual, Cultural, Moral and Social threads as outlined by Ofsted.  So the new curriculum could be addressed to include the dimensions as a normal part of the children’s learning without imposing an extra add-on  for the teachers and at the same time the ‘golden thread’ of the smsc can be intertwined.

For example if teachers taught the Amazon Basin as part of the new key stage 2 curriculum using resources developed by B&C, they could easily flag up interdepence and sustainable development whilst considering cultural and moral aspects of rainforest clearance.  The effect would be that the children were learning the important geographical aspects of the Amazon basin yet in their planning the teachers could show that they were meetingnot only the national curriculum requirements but additionally related and relevant facets of the global dimensions and SMSC.

New new curriculum

As primary teachers are feeling the effects of a long year, facing sports’days, parents’evening, report writing and beginning to think about the coming holidays, so the new curriculum is published in more or less its final form.  There have been some fundamental changes especially to the history which now stops for primary children at 1066, instead of the Restoration.

The new curriculum makes great play about the  fact that there is a school curriculum of which the national curriculum is only a part.  It seems to suggest that once the knowledge based national curriculum is done,then schools can concentrate on the kind of learning they want for their children.  There seems to be no time constraints in the minds of the national curriculum developers.

Many primary schools have spent large parts of their income on resources which they now feel can not be used.  What will happen about Chembakoli or the World War 2 resources both topics having been postponed to the secondary school?