Gambia Link

Castlemorton CE Primary has been linked with a partner school in the Gambia since 2003. Sustaining and continuing the partnership is important to us and the whole community work hard to make this possible.

We have now embedded Gambian life and culture into our curriculum, with all classes using it as a stimuli for learning and teaching. We focus on similarities and feel priviledged that the children have a real and active global dimension to their curriculum.

We have established a link group of interested community members, parents, staff, govenors and another neighbouring school. As the partnership has developed it has become clear that sharing best practice and keeping extremely clear about how the global link develops is a high priority. Therefore the link group have devised an action plan and continually reviews the developments of the partnership.

Headteacher visits have taken place each year providing valuable insights for the children. Once again sincere thanks to everyone for making Mrs Jarjou’s visit a very positive one for the children of Castlemorton. She is an inspirational lady and many of us were touched by her kind words at our Gold Book Assembly.

Boraba Lower Basic School is on the south bank close to the main town of Janjanbureh on Macarthy Island. It is in an extremely rural setting and serves nine villages. The children walk a good distance to school for their lessons and are provided with a mid day meal.

This year Mrs Adsett will be visiting Boraba during February half term with Mrs Williams. The African supper evening was a huge success and raised valuable funds for the school. A huge thanks for your generosity. We know that when we give this money to the school in February they will be very grateful as it will provide enough materials for 200 children for a year of education.

This year’s project will focus on games that support literacy and mathematics. Children at Castlemorton and Boraba will learn and share new games and ideas. Red class enjoy weekly games sessions with volunteer parents and will hopefully be able to give us some ideas to start with. Sporting activities will also be a focus of our visit and we hope to bring back some ideas with us.

Fund raising efforts over the years have been overwhelming. Parents continue to find extra funds to support our continued partnership. This year we will be continuing our support by providing materials for every child. Sanusee, Tida and Mama are the nursery teachers and they will receive a monthly salary from us which otherwise would be unaffordable for the parent community. And we will continue to support the gardens that provide essential food to maintain the children’s health.