Charity no. 1168345
A learning world
Our Global School links schools between the global North and South.
We bring opportunities to share and educate through international contact
Our founding schools are in London, Stellenbosch and Niumi in The Gambia
What we do
Partnering of state schools between UK and Africa
- helps to advance education for all participants.
We are four schools:
Queens Park Community School & Salusbury Primary School
Kayamundi High School, Stellenbosch & Mbollet-Ba Basic School, Niumi, The Gambia
We offer:
Projects to grow education in all our schools through partnership
Discovery homestay visits for teachers, parents, pupils
Get out there
Our Global School runs trips for students, teachers and lifelong learners. Over a hundred visitors have moved between our schools. Stay on a farm or in a township and join an African class !
Connect & Support
Join our Whats App Group to receive updates and offers, to learn about OGS and its trustees, and partner with us to deliver your education projects
How to join in
Make stuff better
Our projects bring better learning settings and resources to all schools. We use partnership to support learning materials, teacher training, school toilets and more. Join a project !
Completed project: Early Years Play Garden
Vicky and Aga completed a dramatic new play and learning facility for the nursery school area over Christmas 2018. Both participated in the 2016 build of the new nursery, and volunteered again to achieve even more, putting creative imagination and communicative play at the heart of the early learning experience in Mbollet-ba.
The project was supported by a grant from St James Place foundation and funds from Our Global School.
The playground includes:
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Role-play areas: a boat, reflecting the fishing culture of the nearby mangrove creeks.
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Hills, tunnels and ramps to help young pupils move in different ways and extend their imaginations.
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A mobile play set made from woven palm. Trials in 2017 saw children use a woven palm tunnel, baskets and fabric with great imagination, and the teachers saw many opportunities for learning
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Speaking tubes to encourage children to communicate
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Swings designed to encourage social and collaborative play.
The video captures the happy mood as children freely develop their ability to adopt roles, communicate, imagine and co-operate. There are few opportunities in a low income rural setting for these types of childhood experience, and providing them is a way we help children to prepare for a future where they may need to work in more complex, social and transactional roles.
Volunteer visits: The Deal
OGS volunteers go to African partner schools on the basis of an equal exchange. Our hosts, and the visiting families and friends, have much to learn from each other.
Travellers to any of our partner schools, whether in South Africa or The Gambia, will stay in local families and pay a fair rate for their food and accommodation. Projects will be consulted and steered by the African hosting partner.
Visits meet the highest standards for education, training, safety, risk management and planning.
OGS makes no profit from exchange visits we run. In some cases we can support the travel of children whose economic circumstances would not enable them to have this experience.
Gambia Partnership 2009-2019: review, and next decade
OGS ran a half-day retreat in June 2019 to mark 10 years since the initial Salusbury-Mbollet-ba school contact that launched us. It's also 5 years since we started to do regular exchange visits (2014 was the first). Help us vision the next decade and meet old friends and fellow citizens or Alumni.
We've written up our notes and you can find them in the pdf.
New thinking for the decade includes employing village people with skills, such as Fatou Joof, to drive the next stage of school development. Fatou receives a monthly wage from OGS of around £25 to supervise the school's food growing garden and to support science teaching here. We're hoping she will also learn to read and write through her involvement with the school. She's already a skilled gardener, and in is dedicated to the raising of a skilled generation in the local youth.
Should we be doing more things like supporting Fatou's work in the school with our funds?
OGS @ Work
London pupils Janina (Salusbury year 6) and Kelly (St Marylebone year 9) share with Adama (centre, Year 6) their work on a mural at the school
Staying as a guest in a traditional African family is an experience of warmth, security, shared moments and delicious memories
Zentangle colouring books made by Salusbury School children were shared with their peers in The Gambia
For the first time, pre-school children, guided by teacher Mariatou, watch educational TV on a set donated by a parent at Salusbury School London
British teachers like Lindsay have a chance to explore new teaching techniques with local class teachers, and help school methods to change
London's CSG sixth formers Edmund and Angela (centre) raised money and sourced 4 bikes to rent to pupils with daily journeys over 5km
Delicious milk fresh from African Whitehorn herds kept near the village by Fula nomads. A walk to get milk is a daily routine - a change from Tesco.
Teacher Bakary Dibba innovates science teaching with hands on discovery learning - he is leading the change to the old tradition of talk and chalk
Students from Mbollet-Ba school led our party of 6 Londoners on a walking bush safari in the afternoon
Our Global School Trustees
c/o Salusbury Primary School
Salusbury Road, London NW6