A visit to Atrå Primary School.

On the 26th February 2009 we were invited to Atrå ( Barne skole) Primary School to have a talk to students about Uganda. Basing on the age of the students the following topics were discussed:

• Disciplining children in a Ugandan home.
• Politics in Uganda,
• School system in Uganda.
• Brief analysis of cultural norms.

To make the teaching more interesting we showed some videos of Uganda's traditional foods, artcraft and dances. We crowned the - day by teaching the students a Kiganda traditional dance.

A TRIP TO RØRA - TRONDHEIM

On the 12th February we took a trip to Trondheim, North of Norway to visit Sund Folkehøgskole. Folkehøg is a Nordic phenomenon and such schools are focused at making students to have a global understanding of many aspects and life skills training in various fields. Students enroll for the Folkehøgskole after Videregående (upper secondary school) and spend one year before joining university.
Sund Folkehøgskole has a capacity of 110 of fulltime students enrolled at the age of 18years.
Subjects offered in the school include Development studies, Environment, Football, Sports, Jazz music, World music and Art & photography.
The school also hosts Fredskorpset youth participants from Universities in India and Guatemala who take lessons at the school and visit other schools in the community.
Our visit to the school was mainly intended to share professional knowledge and cultural values in Uganda and Norway.
On the 14th February 2008, we conducted a seminar to students at the school in which we discussed Uganda’s Strengths and Challenges.
Topics discussed included:
History Of Uganda
Leadership
Society and Cultural Norms
Education System in Uganda
HIV and AIDS awareness in Uganda
According to the evaluation of the whole discussion, students learnt a lot from Uganda’s cultural values and norms and we also learnt from their responses.
The Jazz class performed to us some of the music they learnt during their recent visit to Gambia.
We learnt quite a lot from this visit among which we greatly appreciated the students' active involvement in the daily work at school including working with the kitchen staff and cleaning their living room.
Students behave responsibly despite being a mixed-sex school and respect time for the different schedules in school.
The school has a practice of inducting one or two students after their academic year to work as part of the school staff and be in charge of others, this is a very good practice in the school’s training. We thank Sund Folkehøgskole (Inger Lise) for inviting us and Ingrid Kjelsnes who made it possible for us to travel.

Games & Sports classes at Rjukan Vgs

"Work without play makes Jack a dull boy" Students at Rjukan Vgs have a well balanced curricullum which allows every class to have at least one and half hours of games and sports every week. This helps them to keep a healthy body and mind. During the games and sports lesson, students are guided through a series of general body fitness exercises by the gymnastic teacher. Also a number of competetive sports are available in the sports hall including football, basketball, hocky, vollyball and mountain climbing. Students are also taught how to carry out first aid to an injured sportsman during any game. Every Wednesday 2.00 -3.30pm Geoffrey joins Astry and Arve the two sports teachers during the Electrical and Mechanical students sports lesson.

Gaza Peace Demonstration.

On the 13th January 2009, Rjukan town council mobilised residents to parade at the town square. This is was a way of joining the rest of the world to have a peaceful demonstration against the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Residents had to match through Rjukan town with lit candles before assembling at the town Cinema hall for a speech from the town Mayor and a few other members from the town council. Geoffrey and Peter had to act as responsible members of the community by joining the peaceful demonstration.

Teaching Maths in a Norwegian upper Sec. School.

Peter Ssenyimba in the picture was teaching about Pythagoras theorem and its use in solving practical problems in life. This was a Grade 1 class of Practical Mathematics
(1 ST). The class is made up of 18 students and each of the students has a personal Mathematics text book which are used in each of the lessons.

Variation in Teaching Methodology.

Co-teaching proved to be counter productive in improving students’ attitudes towards the learning of the subject and increased efficiency of the teachers in regard to attaining the desired goals.
Students tended to occupy the front seats and developed more enthusiasm in discovering the unknown through inquiring from the different teachers with ease.

Teachers' X-Mas Dinner at School.

19th Dec. 2008 was the last day of school before the two weeks christmas holiday. Students started off the day by gathering in Rjukan town Cinema hall to watch a film about the history of Norway for about one and half hours. From the Cinema they proceeded to school to have tea and chocolate before receiving their reports. On the other hand teachers had a christmas dinner prepared by Home and Social Care students with their teacher, Listbet. On the menu were Chapatis prepared by Geoffrey and his wife Esther. During this dinner Geoffrey handed over the 2009 Office Calenders of King's College Budo to the headteacher Olav Tov.

Home & Social Care Student's X-mas Dinner.

Each of the Health and Social Care class prepared a dinner during their lessons before christmas.

With the guidance of their teachers; Lisbet and Morte each student chose a dish to prepare. Such meals were served to the teachers that taught those particular classes plus the administrators. Students exhibited a high class of meal preparation and organisation of the dinning room.

Fare well Party of Jon Ivar Finnekåsa

A long serving construction teacher at Rjukan Vgs Jon Ivar Finnekåsa had to bid farewell to the staff over a dinner organised by the school. His long farewell speech mainly composed of a display of memorial pictures of his works at the school and construction works of his students amused every body. The principal of the school Olav tov Roysland thanked him for his service to the school and also thanked the organising committe of the dinner for the job weldone.

Construction Students' study trip

On the 11th November 2008, first year Construction students had a trip to Wienerberg Brick factory in Lunde. The factory has the capacity to produce 70,000 to 100,000 bricks per day. Interestingly the factory has 25- 30 workers and most of the operations in the factory are automated. This is an annual visit always to prepare students for brick contruction works .I joined other teachers in charge of the students Aavald and Erik.