
Philips High Global Links
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Ghana


On February 19th 2011, two teachers from Philips High School paid a visit to our link Partner school in Ghana, West Africa. The school is 2 hours drive north of Accra the capital, in a small town called New Tafo Akim. Here, the teachers met colleagues and pupils from Gifpraise school to learn about the learning that takes place in Ghana and to improve their own teaching of African issues.



The school day starts at 7am and ends at 2pm, the early start due to the hot weather. On two days thunder storms hit at 3pm and lasted the rest of the evening. Power cuts occured and as there were no street lights, driving around in the dark was hazardous for both driver and pedestrians. There were no pavements, so dodging the pot holes, the pedestrians and making sure your wipers and demister work proved difficult for our taxi driver, but we managed with no injuries to anyone in close vicinity.
Pupils woke up at 4am, indeed most people woke at this time to get most of the housework out of the way before it got too hot. Some pupils arrived early (!) to help prepare the school for the day and tidy up. Many walked the long distances to school. On our first day, we were greeted by two rows of pupils the singing of the national anthem.

Pupils had made flags half union flag, half ghanain. The Ghana flag being three colours. Red for the blood shed by their ancestors, gold for the mineral wealth and green for the rich earth and vegetation. The star for Africa.
School began with assembly on the lawn and the national anthem and then messages read out, finally ending with a prayer. Lessons included Maths, English, Science, ICT, Social Studies, DT, Art, Music and Dance and PE. Boys played football and the girls netball.


We managed to stay healthy through our stay thanks to the help from the teachers at Gifpraise and some sound advice. Our diet composed of chicken and rice and then chicken and fried rice. We were not too adventurous regarding food, but enjoyed a traditional meal at a teacher's house. This composed of fried yam, Kaipei, a spicey bean and redfish, which is a freshwater fish. our pupils response to the following picture? well you can imagine.
Our teachers loved palm wine. This is a local drink that tastes nice for the first couple of glasses! It is about 2% alcohol, but once fermented can send rockets into space. They added Guinness to it to add to the taste. There are two guinness breweries in Ghana, they love the stuff! Ben the ICT teacher had his own palm and cocoa plantation which supplemented his income and allowed the other teachers to taste quite regularly his palm wine.
This farm was a good 20 minute walk into the rainforest through narrow paths and dense vegetation. Ghanaian men have a special time keeping, which they call GMT or Ghanaian Men Time. If they say they are going to pick you up at 6, then prepare to be picked up at 7, Ben had said a two minute walk. It was on this walk we came across a black cobra which sped very quickly under a pile of logs. Ben said he always wears wellies in the forest because of the snakes. Rick and I both looked at our feet and our sandles, we moved very quickly to his farm and at the farm we sampled rather more palm wine in honour of the cobra.



One of the many highlights of the trip was the excursion to the Cape Coast. Having been told to wake up at 4.30am, we should have known that we would'nt be picked up until 5.30am. In the town centre many shops were already open and music blaring from them. The pupils were to be taken by two small minibuses on a four hour trip. Both Rick and I looked at each other as we saw the number of pupils and the size of the buses. No way would we all fit into these and Rick suggested he would get his car. "No problem" said Precious, "do not worry" as the pupils began sitting three on a seat, six on the back row and plastic stools appeared for some to sit down the aisle. There was still space for three adults to sit near the driver. With music and smiles we set off with the pupils bouncing and dancing to the music as we went, joined intermittingly by their teachers. We passed through many settlements and realised why a journey of about 120 miles would take four hours. Good roads would merge into dirt roads and then into roads with huge potholes. The minibus driver using his horn to overtake and venturing onto the other side of the road facing oncoming traffic. We stopped off at several locations to get water and once again were joined by street sellers, some getting onto the bus to sell pineapple and octopus.
Our first sight of the Atlantic Ocean had been met with loud wows and beaming smiles as some had seen the sea for the first time..
Our first real stop was the national park. Entrance to the park was double for non-Ghanaians being 30 Cedis. Here we strolled through the rainforest seeing canopies, buttress roots and lianas. The highlight being a 200m rope walkway like on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here." Some pupils refused to do this.


The way back to the entrance and we encountered a 20 metre army of tiger ants. These can give you a nasty bite and devour a cobra. Note to brain, don't fall asleep near an army of tiger ants whilst in Ghana.
We set off for Cape Castle and arrived at 4. We were once again mobbed coming out of the bus by the street sellers. One became my long lost brother and had supported Carlisle United when he was a boy, yeah right! I tested him on who Jimmy Glass was and as he didn't know, lost my business straight away. I didn't need any conch shells anyway.
Cape Castle was where thousands of Gold Coast inhabitants were shipped to the plantations of Brazil, Caribbean and the USA, often via the UK. The conditions in which they were kept, was very disturbing and going around the castle with 60 Ghanaian school children was very humbling. Some of the children took it on themselves to take notes and were tested quite regularly by the guide on certain facts, such as the date of the abolition of slavery. In unison they chanted 1807.
The bus trip home proved long, noisey and bumpy. The driver to keep him awake, as he had now driven for 7 hours and had another four hours to go, played his music loud, the children danced and sang and the road littered with pot holes. The journey and what was an exciting day, had started at 5 in the morning and ended at 11 at night. As you can see by the photos, we had a fantastic experience that hopefully other staff will be able to enjoy in the future as we build our Partnership. We would like to thank the staff and pupils of Gifpraise, our guards at the Cocoa Reaserach Institute and Yaol our taxi driver.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
New Link with China
Friday, 3 July 2009
Japan Trip Easter 2009

Once again we travelled to Japan. This time with 18 pupils and 3 staff. We visited Kyoto, Uto, Hiroshima and Miyagima Island.
We travelled on the Shinkansen and after now three visits, saw our first Geisha.
The school were wonderful in Uto City. We once again remain unbeaten at football in Japan, though our skills in flower arranging and Kendo need to be improved before our next visit.
Friday, 17 October 2008
Philips High International Links

Welcome to the new Philips High International partnership blog. This is to help with our links around the world. We currently have links with schools in Japan.
Philips along with our partner school, Sumiyoshi JuniorHigh School has won the British Council Gold award. Three staff and two pupils visited Tokyo in Summer to receive the award, present a workshop to 80 Japanese teachers and then visited Kyushu Island to extend our link further. Pupils and staff from Sumiyoshi Junior High will visit us in March 2009.
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