Portsmouth Grammar School has been working with Kikaaya College School in Uganda as Partners in Learning for more than 15 years. We spoke to the lead teachers at the two schools to find out what they do together and why the partnership works.
My name is Fiona Titheridge. I'm a teacher of geography at the Portsmouth Grammar School in the UK. I set up the link with Kikaaya [pronounced Chikaya] College School through the British Council back in 2007.
Hello, I'm Mubiru Charles. Previously I was the Headmaster of Kikaaya College School and currently I'm the Director of the school.
How did you your partnership start?
Fiona Titheridge: I did a volunteer program through the United Nations International Youth Service back in my very early 20s. And I absolutely loved that experience. I found myself getting a completely different experience to one that I would have had if I'd simply been a tourist somewhere when I visited it. I worked with the local people, worked with other people from around the world and the richness of experience that I had was beyond anything I'd ever experienced before.
This gave me the desire to teach my pupils about geography and about the world. It gave me the desire to provide the opportunities for them to create meaningful relationships with people in other places and to have the opportunity to work together, to truly be partners in learning. It's had a profound effect on me and my life and I was convinced it would do the same for many others.
We wanted to link with a school in Uganda because it was going to be interesting culturally but we knew we had the uniting language of English to help us to communicate effectively. And we felt it was a more unusual African country to link with at that time.
I got a raft of letters from Uganda, replying to my request through signing up to the British Council's database. And as soon as I read the letter from Mr. Mubiru, I knew we had our school. It was completely clear that this was the person and this was the institution we wanted to link with and it proved to be the right decision.
Mr Mubiru: Our school profile was on the British Council portal. I went through a number of profiles for those who had written. When I read through what Mrs. Fiona had written, it caught my attention because I wanted something special and unique for my students. I wanted them to know other students, to know the experiences which other students go through, to get friends, to help them to know what other students are studying and also to get an opportunity for my students to share their experiences with the students from UK. Portsmouth Grammar School seemed to be having what my students had wanted.
Later on, I found out that Madame Fiona was good in responding. She was a good leader and she could respond within time. So, gradually that's how we built it.
The activities for the last 17 years have been so captivating on part of my students. They liked what was coming from Portsmouth, the variety of subjects, because it could cut across all the subjects. Really, it has been a rich experience over the years. We are partners in learning across the entire curriculum and we pray that it continues for the next 50 years.
