Working with our partners at the University of Leicester, 5 Wells have delivered seven sessions of training to 37 teacher training leads from Ghana who have been visiting the UK in September.  They came to see how teacher training works here and saw the processes at the university.

Alongside this they wanted to be involved in some of the training that we would deliver to our teachers – a bit of the UK Experience.  They had training on Getting the Learning Environment Right, Leadership and Creating Teams, Outstanding Schools and Using Data Effectively amongst others.

They were very impressed by the work that teachers and schools do in this country and went away with plenty of food for thought to explore in their own settings and with their own trainee teachers.  Often they will be teaching classes of 50 – 60 students at the same time and in a wide variety of classroom settings.  The leadership training gave the Trainers ideas and models for them to explore, especially around developing the vision for their setting and getting a leadership team to work together.

On the Friday of their week in Leicester, 5 Wells had arranged for groups of the Ghanaians to visit some of our schools so that they could really see how schools work.  They couldn’t have been more impressed!  After the training they had plenty of questions to be asking in each school – about displays, data, learning environments and especially classroom management – but they will certainly have been inspired by what they saw.  A huge ‘Thank You’ to Rowan Gate, Oakway, Victoria, Croyland, Park, Irchester, Wollaston, Ruskin Infants and St Barnabas.  Some of the schools already have links with Ghana and were able to put out the flag and talk about the links they have made.  Others started a dialogue which will hopefully lead to further links in future.  Everyone involved their Ghanaian pupils and parents.

At the leaving meal on the Friday evening, the whole group were buzzing with what they had seen and done.

We are looking forward to more links of this kind to let us see what happens elsewhere as well as showing off the wonderful schools in our county.

The programme at Leicester was so relevant to our job. The presenters were carefully chosen and they all delivered brilliantly. Pat them on their backs for me.

Thanks for the very warm reception accorded us. We also appreciated the school visits and thank all the head teachers and teachers of the schools we visited especially those in Croyland Primary School. I love the children in that school.