Week Three - Professional Blog

21st February 2012

Previously experiencing a short trip to Uganda a few years ago, I had the opportunity to work amongst children in a local school. Having some experience of what I was going to endure during my international semester, I was surprised at the standards of the school Lynsey and I would be teaching in. Having previously experienced a small, lower class school on the suburbs of the main city, it was a far cry from City Parents Primary School.

City Parents Primary School is a very large school which hosts over 3500 children. Having around seven classes for each year with an average of seventy children per class, I felt anxious at the thought of teaching and controlling such a large amount of pupils. As I made my way through each of three main classroom blocks, I was overwhelmed by the size of the school and the amount of children squeezed into each classroom. Many of the classrooms I peered into resembled a cramped room containing numerous rows of children complete with a teachers’ desk hidden at the back of the room. One blackboard fixed on the wall seemed to resemble the only immediate resource available.

As I reached the lower end of the school, I was pleasantly surprised to find a colourful building. With classrooms facing into each other over a large porch, the majestic building rivalled any schools present in Northern Ireland. Feeling more at home at this end of the school, I was happy to find I would be teaching a P.3. Class. Ugandan schools begin their school year at the end of January and so arriving at school on the first day of term allowed Lynsey and I to mirror the feelings of those starting school for the first time. As I stood in front of my class of eighty-one children, I knew that learning names this time around on placement may be an issue!

Key Stage One in City Parents Primary School

City Parents is a private school, meaning it does not allow each pupil to move into the next stream automatically after each school year. Pupils would only enter a P.3 class therefore if they were to pass their P.2 exams. The wide range of ages in each class was foreign to me yet knowing that most children had roundabouts the same ability level meant that it was very different to any school in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Curriculum states how our curriculum is one which “meets the needs of individual children.” As we have such a focus of meeting each child where they are in relation to ability, and so I am keen to see in the next few weeks how the large numbers of pupils in the class will show this.

Being seen as one of the better schools in Kampala, a large fee of around £400 has to be paid each term to allow children to go to school. Having explained the differences of lifestyle throughout Uganda within my last blog, I was surprised at the amount of children that would attend a school with such a hefty fee. City Parents School is seen as middle to upper class school and so for many families in Uganda, being a part of this school would be seen as a huge social status.

Upon experiencing this school briefly, I have already picked up on the limited amount of resources, the vast amount of pupils and the varying age groups within each class. Already I know that this experience will be one which is completely different from one I have endured in Northern Ireland, yet one I am most looking forward to.

Outside my P.3 class

References

Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007), CCEA, Belfast.