Schools Linking in association with:
School Profile
CHIKOMBOLA PRIMARY SCHOOL
Chikombola Junior primary School is one of the JP’s (Junior Primary Schools) in Salima. It is 10 km away from the Salima Township and about 19km away north of Lake Malawi.
The school was established in 1998. The school has one block made of burnt bricks. This school block was built by MASAF (Malawi Social Action Fund). Besides this, the school has uses an infrastructure made of grass and wood. The school management starts from the Head teacher, School Committee, PTA (Parents Teachers Association) then to the District Education Manager.
Chikombola School has 230 pupils in total who are in classes 1-4 only as compared to other schools which have classes 1-8.
Classes have students as follows:
Class 1: 41 Boys, 39 Girls.
Class 2: 30 Boys, 32 Girls.
Class 3: 20 Boys, 30 Girls.
Class 4: 20 Boys, 18 Girls.
The age range of the school is 5-14 because some children start going to school late or are repeating. However, this factor doesn’t disturb education system in Malawi.
Like any other school in Malawi, Chikombola School teaches subjects like, English, Maths, Religious Education, General Studies. In classes 4 and above pupils begin to learn life skills this mostly concerns HIV/ AIDS. Most explanatory is in Chichewa since children can not understand English well. However, children may be capable to speak English as one reaches 6-8 i.e. in their senior primary classes.
Chikombola School hopes to do all classes from 1-8. The school drop out rate of the school is also high as you can see from the data form, enrolment declines sharply as we go into the senior classes especially for girls. There are several reasons that contribute to this like long distances children have to walk to school, overcrowding in classes and high pupil teacher ratio among others. By having classes 1-8 will reduce the distances which children travel.
As a school, we want to be involved in the link so that we can learn from our friends in the UK especially in the developed countries. The link will greatly assist children to work hard so that they can be as their colleagues in the UK. Teachers will also be able to enhance their professional skills through dialogue and interaction with fellow teachers in the UK.
Linking Work
Lamberhurst, St Mary's Primary School
Pupils in Y3, 4 & 5 have designed and created colourful and fun maths games, including boxes and covers for the games. The aim was to help other pupils to learn their numbers, number bonds and times tables. The pupils were also asked to consider how the rules of their game could be displayed and understood by pupils who may not be able to speak/understand English
The games will be taken to Chikombola School by Gayle and Esther in October and used as part of their Linking lessons.
