English language scheme

Our English Learning Scheme aims to improve primary school children’s English, which is vital if they are to pass their leaving exams and progress to secondary schools. Children in rural areas like Kashare are at a huge disadvantage because they start English late, and do not hear it spoken much at home or in the media. The class 7 primary school exams are taken in English.
Initially the scheme was carried out during Saturday workshops. In 2019 we completely overhauled it, bringing interactive teaching into the school day in two schools, helping to develop contemporary English language learning activities. This was a resounding success with teachers and pupils alike engaging with new teaching methods which have dramatically improved results. At the end of 2019, 49 children across our two schools gained grades 1-5 in English, as against 26 children the year before. We believe the scheme has also enormously helped with overall improved results at the schools.
We organise training workshops for teachers to strengthen interactive teaching and we are helping to develop debates, quizzes and other clubs in the schools.
At the end of the year 71% of the teachers adopted interactive teaching approaches; 81% of the teachers indicated that the methods improved pupils’ understanding of English language and 64% agreed that project was appropriate for pupils’ learning needs.
We hope soon to repeat a one-day holiday camp with students from Mbarara University of Science and Technology. The camp we organised in 2019 left a big impression on the children. One said: “I was inspired and motivated to concentrate on my studies by one of the MUST students who came from a humble background like me but now is in her final year at university. I loved her talk and I hope she can be my mentor because life back home isn’t easy even though I love studying.”
“Nowhere have we seen active teaching and learning in practice as we saw it in some of the classes of these two rural primary schools,” Liz Walton, All Our Children (charity also working to improve education in rural Uganda, who visited Kashare)

Will you help fund these lively, interactive methods for better English learning among children whose parents often speak no English and had little or no schooling?