Sparkling Stars

The school has now 31 children, 14 of which are free children who come from very, very poor families who live in the slum areas. The rest are paying children. It is encouraging to see how the school is growing, though at times I have been very discouraged and have almost given up. But this last 6 months we have been able to put up our fees and admit a few children who are able to pay these fees. Although we are still not covering our costs and some of the expenses are required to be covered by donations, we are doing a lot better and we have a lot more enthusiasm to continue on with it.

We are covering the Cambridge system of education. After many years being, here having my older children in the local system, I have got to know how the local curriculum works, and to see how it has affected Uganda’s development. It uses a lot of fact cramming, not really teaching a child to think and use their initiative; with no imaginative development at all. After a lot of debate, we have now started teaching using a more international approach. This means a lot of work for us as the teachers are not experienced in teaching practically. We spend a lot of time planning for each term and teaching the teachers what to teach. It makes it quite hard and frustrating attimes and feels like we are doing many jobs at once. The local educational examining board allows the Cambridge SATS results to be converted into the local PLE (end of primary exams) results so meaning the children will not be affected if they need to go back into the local schools. So far, the parents are very happy and the children love coming to school.

We have a good staff; 4 Teacher’s, a Toddler worker, a Security man, a cleaner, and a cook. They are good workers, but of course it’s hard at times managing them due to cultural differences. Jane, one of the teachers who I have been working with for around four years, has just finished her Nursery Teacher training course. I met Jane when she was struggling with life. She finished her A’levels but hadn’t been able to go on with further education so she was working at a fishing net factory. She was really struggling with hardly any money so didn’t have good accommodation or much provision of anything else. She didn’t have any teacher training but applied for a job with us so we gave her a try, with the aim to put her through studies if she does well. After a while her living conditions worsened so I gave her a house to live in. At that time her boyfriend mistreated her, deceived her into bed and she fell pregnant. For months she never told me in fear of being fired from her job, which often happens here. She was astounded when I found out and didn’t send her away. Since then she has been working for us and being a single parent to her little boy who has just turned three.

At the end of the term in July we held a school performance where the children sang songs and did presentations on the things they had been studying during the term. We had been studying about the world; they sang songs from different countries and also made cakes to sell to the parents after we had finished. The children performed very well. It was a lovely afternoon and the parents were so impressed. You can see some of the photo’s below.

We have a friend, who I have mentioned about in one of my other posts, she has a clinic where she works with many people who are affected by HIV. She has raised funds for many people to have free ARV medicine. She looks after a lot of children, many who are very poor. This term we will be taking in at least five of her children under free education, and if we can raise enough support, to help with housing and other financial costs the family may need. We are happy that we now have a good base of fee-paying children to enable us to support more vulnerable children, much in need of a good education.