SCHOOLING

This is the school where I am based. It is called Kapolo Combined School because it has children from upper primary and lower secondary grades. There are about 210 learners (I might introduce this way of describing you when I return!) and the subjects they study are very similar to those you learn at Southwick. The main difference is that everyone has agriculture lessons – very important in this part of Namibia where most people grow a great deal of their own food.

School starts at 8.00 when the ‘bell’ is sounded.

I have already told you that most of the pupils walk or run very long distances to get there. Lessons are 40 minutes each and the learners work until 2pm with two 15 minute breaks. During these breaks some of them buy guava for a snack. There are no school dinners. I have learned that we are very lucky at our school. The government gives Kapolo School money for teachers, desks and chairs and some textbooks. The school has to buy everything else with fees which the parents are asked to pay. Everyone in Namibia, like in the UK, has the right to a free education, so if the parents cannot afford to pay the fees the school does not have enough money to pay for the things we take for granted. In the rural areas, like the one I am working in, most of the parents are very poor. Some learners do not even have parents and are responsible for looking after younger brothers and sisters. You have wonderful teaching assistants to help you, lots of computers, books and other equipment and games to help you learn; Kapolo School has none of these.

This is one of the classrooms. The learners are taught something by the teacher, then they copy from the board or do an exercise in their book. Here they are being taught the simple present tense (I fly, you fly, he/she flies).
Part of my work has been to show them how to make the learners do more of the work and not just listen! I have run two workshops for teachers.I based my English workshop on writing instructions - I remembered watching a wonderful lesson in Brunel on writing instructions for cleaning your teeth so asked one group to do that. It was very funny as the other group who had to carry them out tried to rinse their mouths with the toothbrushes still in them – they hadn’t been told to take them out! Mind you, their instructions also needed improving as they didn’t give us one to stop doing the exercise routine they had designed.

In the maths workshop, I showed them how they could make learning more fun by using practical equipment and games. I was very pleased as, on the very next day, I saw learners in a grade 5 class finding out about fractions by cutting up guava, using fraction wheels which I had shown them and stones which they pretended were sweets. I was so impressed that I gave them real sweets to do that activity with – the class was very excited.

We have also looked at how the school could make better use of its classrooms.

This is a picture of one where the floor was so bad that it couldn’t be used. We decided however that it needed to be used as a base for Junior Secondary maths. The school bought some concrete and pupils who had been late or who had been absent from school had to stay to repair the floor as a punishment. Desks and chairs were also mended and cleaned and I helped them to start to put up displays to help the learners. I also bought them some equipment such as metre rulers, a stop watch, measuring jugs, card and coloured paper.

This is a Grade 8 lesson I taught today in that classroom with their teacher whose name is Angelius - he's called Angel for short. I am sure that those of you in Fox Talbot and Priestley could add some more percentages to the number line.
Tomorrow I will be teaching a Grade 10 lesson on borrowing money. Some learners will pretend to be businessmen or women and the others will visit them to find the best deal to buy a car. I have had to learn all about simple and compound interest so wish me luck!

This is the staffroom and the school principal (head teacher). Each teacher has a desk to work at.

Have the toilets for Rennie and Brunel been refurbished yet? This is what a school toilet looks like here.

I also spend time working with an inspector called Hileni Amukana. We get on very well and she really wants to visit you and see our school at work. She wants Kapolo to tell the other schools in her circuit what they are changing and why. She is very proud as Kapolo is now the first school in Oshana to have a school improvement plan (ask your teacher to explain this bit to you).
We attended a 2 day conference together last week on text books – how to order them, label them, record them, check them at the end of each year, take care of them and use them. This is very important as Namibia aims to provide every child with a textbook in every subject and this will cost the country a great deal of money. On the second day I went to 3 lessons which showed how the textbooks could be used. I am very pleased with the story which my group wrote on ‘How the mosquito got its buzz’. Maybe you could write one too and we could compare our reasons.
One of the other tasks I have done with her was to visit some learners at the hospital. A company had sprayed their school with insecticide to kill the mosquitoes but hadn’t told them to stay out of the rooms afterwards. Many of them then got burns on their skin and their eyes were also affected.

I still have lots of work to do before I leave. I will show you more photos and videos when I see you all again in April. I know that our school will be different – I have already heard that the new classroom door locks are causing a few problems! I wonder if the school grounds will have changed too.
Just remember to appreciate everyone and everything you have.