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Bakoteh Nursery

Essau 
Nursery

London Corner
Nursery

In 2006 GETS appointed one of our school heads to act as our Education Manager. Nfamara Jarju, our head from Bakoteh, has filled this position aimed at co-ordinating the schools and ensuring that the charity's policies, such as the numbers of children taught in each class, are followed, as well as encouraging that good practice in any school is implemented in all the schools.

Nfamara visits each school at least two or three times each term checking that school registers are accurate and that the number of children on role are the actual numbers attending each school.

During 2006 and early 2007 rural Gambian schools, including our school at Essau, benefitted from a supply of rice and oil as part of a world feeding programme - this has now (Sept 07) been stopped because of alledged corruption. We discovered that over 200 children were being claimed on the Essau school's register, whereas GETS places a maximum number of 120 children in the school - a maximum of 40 children per class but we'd like to reduce the school numbers to 30 per class.

Rote learning still has a place in each day's teaching but is now interspersed with skills training and simple practical exercises to give each children the confidence and ability to hold a crayon, colour a shape and draw around templates accurately.

Our teachers are far more willing to take in everyday objects, leaves from trees etc to provide the teaching resources for language and mathematics work. Play is used more often to stimulate the children in good social behaviour and communal interaction.

Children's work now goes up on the walls of each classroom.

As resources become available the children will learn to use scissors and glue, and will start to make simple objects, while all the time acquiring the English they need to progress.

Letters are learnt first as the letter itself but then as part of a small but expanding vocabulary, and there are flash cards of these words. The schools are being decorated with painted and drawn resources on the school walls, so that the children can start to read both in and out of the classrooms.

OUR MAJOR requirement is for a volunteer worker who can help to produce the resource materials at each school in teacher workshops.

GETS has very largely moved away from relying on resource materials made in the UK and now encourages each teacher to plan lessons around materials that can be made in the school or sourced locally.

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