During our half term holiday we (Mr Varey, Miss Day and Mrs Rimmer) travelled to Sierra Leone, in partnership with the British Council and Global connections.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the World and in recent years the government has prioritised education making it free and compulsory for all children.

While we were in Sierra Leone we had the opportunity to lead a teacher training session (CPD) for 50 Secondary School teachers from across the country, providing them with a range of learning and teaching strategies. We are delighted to say that we even made National News!!!

As well as this we spent time in our partnership school St Raphaels witnessing vibrant and musical assemblies, an outstanding and colourful sports day, and learning and teaching around the school.

We then taught lessons based around Sustainable Development Goal 7: Sustainable and Renewable Energy. Next term Year 8 pupils will take up the joint curriculum project within Geography lessons in preparation for the visit of St Raphaels teacher Mr Michael Thomas in June.

As always the teachers and children at St Raphaels made us very welcome and were eager to hear news from Maricourt.

We were also extremely lucky to be immersed in true Salone culture by visiting some of the traditional settlements, participating in a cultural dance and music performance and visiting Sierra Leon's famously beautiful, white sand Number 2 River Beach (lucky us!!)

Maricourt House compete at sports day at St Raphael's