Tampoe D/A Primary School - our partner school

Today I visited the school I will be linking with my school at home. It is called Tampoe D/A Primary School and the headteacher is Mr Mark Laarimso. There are around 285 pupils on roll in two Kindergarten classes (Foundation 1 & 2), and then Forms P1 - P6 (Years 1 – 6). My intention was to spend the day at the school and find out what a day in the life of a Ghanaian child, and teachers, is like.

The school is located some way out of Jirapa to the west and therefore has lots of space around it, which makes it attractive. When I arrived at the school at 7.30am many of the children were already there, along with two members of staff. The children were cleaning the yard and the classrooms. One of the children came straight up to help me with my bicycle. It is striking how helpful and polite these children are.

There are three main classroom blocks – Kindergarten, Lower School and Upper School – the headteacher’s office/staff room, a small canteen and a large yard for the children to play in. Two classrooms are new, and have been built with help from ActionAid.

The yard looks similar to ours at home, but is sandy with a few trees, whilst ours is covered in grass and has plenty of trees. This I imagine is mainly due to the dry climate and there will perhaps be more vegetation once the rains come. The biggest difference though must be the animals. A variety of animals, including goats, pigs and chickens, wander around the yard pretty much unnoticed by all except the English visitor who still finds it very novel!

At 8am it was time for the morning’s assembly and an older boy banged a drum, just like a child in our school rings the school handbell. All the children lined up in classes, again just like in our school. The headteacher pointed out that many of the children were not yet present because they were collecting water for the school day. There is no running water in the school and obviously it is needed – for drinking, washing, cooking and for flushing the toilets. The nearest borehole is 3km away and the children carry the water to the school. This is hard work, and it would be much better if the school had its own borehole.

During their assembly the children sang the national anthem and spoke the pledge, again led by an older pupil who I later found out was the prefect for the week, and then the headteacher introduced me and asked me to speak a few words to the children. I explained who I was and that I would like to link our two schools. Next the headteacher said some words in Dagaare (the local language) to the Kindergarten children because they do not yet speak English. Finally the children sang and marched in their lines to their classrooms.


Some of the teachers had been delayed, but nevertheless the children behaved well and sat in the classrooms sensibly while they waited. Some even did some reading together from their textbooks or sang a song from the blackboard.

Each classroom has several wooden doors and plenty of windows which allow them to take in as much light and breeze as possible. There is no electricity for lights or for computers, so the school has none. The Ghana Education Service has put ICT onto the curriculum so schools are trying to teach it with the aid of pictures, which is clearly virtually impossible. There was one teacher, however, who had brought a laptop with her to help the children understand. She said it is very useful but only has a short battery life, so can only be used for the duration of the lesson. I also believe it is very unusual for people to own laptops here in the north, although from what I saw in the south most teachers had at least a personal laptop even if they did not use it for school purposes.

Around the classrooms bicycles and motorbikes belonging to the teachers were parked. At the break one of the older boys pumped up a tyre on a motorbike for one of the teachers with other children looking on.

Mr Laarimso asked me to share breakfast with him and I was delighted to do so! This was something again new for me to try. From a bag he produced a drink in a sachet and some ground nuts which he had purchased on the way to work. In the sachet was a white drink of a fairly thick consistency – a bit like the soya milk we have been buying – which tasted a little like spiced milk. It was delicious! Mr Laarimso said it was cocoa but that it should not be drunk at night as it will keep you awake.

Soon it was time for me to leave the headteacher to get on with his work and go and meet the teachers and the children, and see what they were learning. I started in the Kindergarten where both classes were sitting together with their two very friendly and welcoming teachers. In the next half hour or so the children treated me very enthusiastically to what must have been most of their considerable repertoire of songs. Every child took part and there were actions and dancing. I could have listened to them all day! One of the teachers had her own small child with her and he seemed to enjoy himself too! Teachers here in Ghana have just 3 months maternity leave, compared to our 6 months or year.



One of the teachers explained her concerns to me that most of the children in Kindergarten do not wear school uniform. This seems to be because the parents do not provide them, perhaps because they are quite expensive and they think the children should be older before they buy them. Certainly the children grow very quickly here. In every class they appear to be much taller than the children in the equivalent classes at home.

Next I went to the block of classrooms where P1, 2 and 3 were working. P2 were having a maths lesson involving finding the missing numbers in an addition sum. The children were working hard and had a good relationship with their teacher – a retired teacher who does not want to stop teaching! At one point, to the amusement of the children, the teacher drew in chalk on a child’s head! All the children – boys and girls – have very short hair. I understand this is to prevent the spread of headlice. Several times children from other classes came to watch too, and had to be shooed away. I am not sure if this was because of the interesting lady with the white skin, or something that happens regularly.

In P3 while the children waited for their teacher they read to me together from their English books. They read well and corrected each other where necessary. Later they sang me a song. I was impressed that the children could organise themselves so well, as I have a worrying idea of what children in England would get up to in the same situation! Later, when the teacher arrived they learned about column multiplication. The teacher demonstrated the concept several times on the board, and then the children tried their own. The ones they did in their books were harder than the examples, yet many children coped well with this task.


Over in the block where P4, 5 and 6 were based I witnessed a very hardworking P6 class who were having an English Language lesson involving reading a passage and answering comprehension questions. This class had their heads down working diligently most of the morning. P4 were working on the use of the apostrophe when I stopped by and some children grasped this difficult concept very well. Finally P5 were without their teacher but were getting on with some reading together.

Unlike some other schools I have visited Tampoe does not suffer with overcrowding, and the rooms are big enough for the numbers of pupils. However, there is not enough furniture and much of the existing stock is falling apart. Some children were working on the floor in one classroom. The number of pupils in P6 is relatively low compared to the rest of the classes. The headteacher told me this is because there is a great deal of competition to get into the popular JHS schools and that parents will move their children to get into the JHS they want. Most of the pupils at Tampoe transfer to St Augustine’s JHS.

The timetable seems very similar to our one at home, and certainly there is a great deal of overlap in the subjects. Lessons are taught from 8.15 until 10.15am, before a 15 minute break, and then from 10.30 until 12 noon. There is half an hour for lunch and the last lesson runs from 12.30 until 1.30 when school closes for the day. The timing for lunch is flexible because it depends when the food is ready. The Kindergarten pupils queue up first.


Next I couldn’t resist dropping in to see the ladies who were cooking lunch. The school is fortunate to be part of the National Schools Feeding Programme which is designed to increase school enrolment. The ladies were mixing, stirring and cooking busily, and were making TZ and ground nut soup. I was to find out later that this meal was very tasty. The ladies were delighted to have their pictures taken while they were at work! They do not have the benefit of gas or electric stoves, or running water, and cooked on an open fire for 285 pupils and staff! Truly amazing!


On the way back I stopped at the Kindergarten class again. They had been working on copying their letters from the board in chalk on the classroom floor, and I was struck by how neatly many of them had written. Then they showed me a game involving a group of children and a teacher sitting in a circle each with a stone in their hands. They had to bang their stones on the floor in rhythm and then move them onto the next person, and pick up a new stone also in rhythm. The idea was to keep going as long as possible until somebody made a mistake. This was a fun game involving considerable co-ordination skills and concentration. It ended after a couple of minutes with lots of laughter.

Soon it was lunchtime. At this point I returned to the headteacher’s office which is also the staff room, and was invited to stay for lunch. The Kindergarten children were queuing up at the canteen with their bowls.



The teachers gradually arrived and we sat eating TZ and ground nut soup together and chatting. These are very friendly people and the headteacher says they are so friendly that sometimes he finds it difficult to get his work done because he keeps chatting with them when they come to the staff room. I had given the headteacher our Weston Turville school calendar and the inflatable globe, and we all looked through the calendar together. I explained who the children were and that each class had dressed up to represent the month of the year. This turned out to be a good gift because I was able to explain some of the English cultural customs, like Bonfire Night and maypole dancing, and how they relate to the weather in England. The teachers also noticed the difference in the size of the children and we all commented how much taller Ghanaian children are.



Just before I left, the headteacher organised for me to take away a large bag of ground nuts. I was thrilled because only last week Cath, Aaron, Noriko and I spent ages and ages peeling a small bag of ground nuts, and these ones were already peeled, so I appreciated the labour. I think the teachers thought I was exaggerating the time it took to peel the nuts and how they made our fingers sore!

I thoroughly enjoyed my day at Tampoe Primary School and found out so much about Ghanaian education and life here for the children. I was struck by how happy the children and staff were. I realised during the day that while all the schools in the Upper West face tough challenges there are some schools which succeed against the odds. This is one of them, and surely has much to do with the hardworking and committed attitude of the headteacher and the staff. By P5 and P6 many of the children have a good grasp of English and read well. The children’s behaviour was very good indeed but not unnaturally so – as you would expect there were still some children who were mischievous, and this showed their spirit and sense of fun. I can see a partnership between the two schools working well and, although there are some obstacles, like the cost and reliability of postage in the absence of computers, there is an air of determination amongst the staff and the headteacher. As I left, the headteacher said he felt our schools linking is God’s will, and I am inclined to agree with him.

On my next visit to Tampoe Primary School there was great excitement because of a new drum! At lunchtime a boy came to bang the drum with a big smile on his face and then everyone cheered because the drum made such a big deep sound.


Again I stayed for a tasty lunch of TZ with spicy leaves, and it was during this time that the staff asked if I minded being called ‘nasala’ by the children. Often in the street they will call out to us ‘Nasala, Nasala, Nasala!’ with big smiles on their faces, meaning ‘white person, white person, white person!’ It is not meant as an insult and is therefore not taken that way by us. The headteacher explained where the word comes from. ‘Na’ was a word used to describe the British people when Ghana was a British colony, and it means ‘Chief’. ‘Sala’ means ‘golden skin’, so the word actually translates as ‘chief with the golden skin’. In fact – a compliment!

As I was about to leave, some representatives from the Health Service arrived to carry out immunisations on the whole school against an illness called CSM, a form of meningitis. There has been an outbreak of this serious disease locally. The headteacher was very pleased to see them, but they had arrived unannounced which was a little inconvenient for everyone, especially as it was 1.30 and the school was closing. The children could not go home, some were absent anyway, and the teachers had to come back into school to help to supervise. The children behaved impeccably and made no fuss, although one older girl had run off home, and had to be sent for. A teacher said she was frightened of the needle, but she did return.