Global School Partnerships
Muntham House School Extends Services to Africa
In February of this year, staff from Muntham House School visited schools around the town of Kitale in Western Kenya, as part of the Global Schools Project supported by the British Council, through the Department For International Development (DFID).
The inclusion of a non maintained special school like Muntham was an obvious extension for the partnerships in the Horsham area of West Sussex, as the Primary and Secondary Headteachers are all member of various partnerships linked to learning behaviour within the area. The work with colleagues in learning behaviour had established Muntham as an integral part in most area education undertakings and had shown that Muntham was able to fully contribute staffing and resources where the strategic interests of all of our pupils were clear.
Global School Partnerships
Global School Partnerships is funded by UKaid from the Government's Department for International Development (DFID).
The Global School Partnerships programme promotes partnerships between schools in the UK and schools in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The Partnership Muntham is involved in is formed of schools in the Horsham area of West Sussex and Kitale in Western Kenya.
The programme provides advice and guidance, professional development opportunities and grants to schools that are using school partnerships as a means for developing a global dimension within their curriculum. The programme aims to raise young people's awareness of global development issues and equip them with the skills and knowledge to become active global citizens.
The website for the Project is full of interesting ideas and has all the necessary directions advice and forms to get you started with a partnership of your own.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/globalschools-partnership-old.htm
Figure 1: The Weather Station at Lumuli
Special School Involvement
Up until now special schools had not been greatly involved in the programme, however in Kenya and Uganda this should change. There has been a request from the British Council in Nairobi to develop the programme through the special needs community and officers of the British Council will be in England in the late spring to meet with SEN colleagues. A number of events to highlight the project are planned.
Figure 2: Lisa Matthews and Kat Sell from Muntham get the thumbs up from Lumuli
The Muntham Experience
Muntham House has partnered Lumuli Primary School (primary in this context is not the same as the UK and would be better termed first school as the school is based on grades and ability to pass grades the age range in Lumuli is from 5 to 22), near Kitale in West Kenya. Richard Boyle, Lisa Matthews and Kat Sell from Muntham hosted three staff from Lumuli in November last year and whilst the visitors were at Muntham they taught and joined in the life of the school based around several curriculum projects, based on the Millennium Project.
The Millennium Project gives plenty of scope for working across cultures and identifying a consistent pedagogy with shared outcomes. The central idea of Global Schools Partnerships is peer to peer interactions that support improvements in learning and extensions to the curriculums of both of schools.
Figure 3: Kat Sell working on freeze frame techniques with students from Lumuli
Figure 4: Lisa Matthews asking difficult questions
The joint project between Muntham and Lumuli for instance was a joint garden, where we would try and grow similar crops in each country and see what happened. This of course brought us into all kinds of issues from climate change, to land use, to weather and climate studies, and a host of social and cultural issues around working the land. We are also now committed to building weather stations and Lumuli got there first.
Figure 5: Richard Boyle asking a local expert how to plant a tree
This year has seen the two schools work closely together and we expect this to really take off later this year when Lumuli gets electricity and we can regularly email each other. Without doubt it is an opportunity not to be missed and a wonderful inspiration to all of us who took part. Next year we intend to take some of our students in a new Muntham Team out to Kenya and already most of our students have volunteered.
Richard Boyle
Principal. Muntham House School