The Great Restart
On January 10th - for the first time in two years for many of our learners - we’re thrilled to report the doors to Bumakenya Primary School were finally reopened!! It’s such a delight to have the children and teachers back in after so long, and visiting the school over these past weeks you can feel none of us will be taking this opportunity for granted any time soon.
This feeling appears to be shared by the community, and is backed up by the regular daily attendance, which has risen from around 300 pupils pre-pandemic to over 450 pupils now. Like other schools across the country, we feared that many of the students would not return after so long away. We’re delighted to have got that assumption completely wrong! What we’ve seen is a huge rise in numbers, and from observing lessons over the past few weeks, an eagerness to concentrate and learn like never before.
The results from the most recent Primary School Leaving Exams has certainly helped the popularity of the school. In the winter of 2020, as part of a phased reopening, the ‘P7’ learners (the oldest yeargroup at Primary Level) were permitted to return to school in order to study for these crucial exams. Despite missing most of the academic year, the children were able to achieve fantastic results: of 24 candidates, 17 passed these exams, and 15 of these passed with good enough marks to qualify for free tuition at Secondary School. Generally speaking, Secondary School fees tend to be much higher than Primary and so provide a big obstacle for many families to continue their children’s education. So to have 15 pass in such a way really is what our work is all about. The school did not even have a P7 class until 2018, so we consider this a fantastic achievement!
Our teaching staff have done an incredible job, and since returning they’ve reminded us on more than one occasion about the promise we made to take them for a grand lunch at nearby Bumbo Resort – the nicest spot in town – as reward for their efforts! A lunch well earned, in our opinion.
Of course, there’s a huge amount of work still to be done. Two years is a long time, but is an eternity considering how important the early primary years are for cognitive development. In the case of Bumakenya, there was sadly no option of remote learning and minimal opportunity for homeschooling as parents have no choice but to work. Over the coming weeks we will be trying to assess the impact Covid has had - primarily through reviewing the levels of literacy as compared with how they were when lasted tested in 2019, but also through discussions with pupils, parents and teachers.
What we do know is this year we’ll be doing everything we can to reintegrate the children and catch them up as best as possible. This includes teacher training workshops, extra phonics and literacy classes for those that need them, and more space for learning with the newly constructed classrooms will certainly help.
More on our upcoming programmes will follow in future communications. For now though, we want to thank you all so much for your continued support. Your decision to support us, despite the extremely challenging times we’ve found ourselves in, has meant so much both to us and our learners. Covid has wreaked havoc on education worldwide, and has widened the gap between the haves and have-nots, but you have continued to help those in most need, and together we have provided the foundation to help what is now over 450 children access a quality, meaningful education. It really does mean the world.
Wanyala Navi! (Thank you very much!)