Northampton primary school teacher visits Ghana in the hope of educating students about connection and culture

The Abbey Primary School on Winchester Road has been described as a wonderfully inclusive and diverse place for pupils.

The school recently celebrated ‘Ghana Week’ and teacher Nicole Lambert has flown to the West African country, where she will remain until the start of December spending time at a village school.

Nicole has been a year one teacher at The Abbey Primary School for the past eight years and has been the key stage one lead for a quarter of that time.

This opportunity came about when Nicole attended a teacher training conference day in June and after speaking to a talk host, she was invited to the Ghanaian school he is a trustee for.Nicole is among a group of five teachers from across the country who were invited to help the children and staff out there, in the hope of improving the level of education.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Nicole told the Chronicle & Echo. “I wanted to do a big fundraising and awareness week as this isn’t something we’ve done before.”

As part of Ghana Week, the school hosted cake sales, a mufti day in Ghanaian colours, families brought in donations to be taken to Ghana, and the students made bracelets with their names on to be given to the other pupils.

“I can already see from Ghana Week there’s been an impact,” said Nicole. “There’s so much enthusiasm from the students, parents and teachers. We want to create a tighter community with the school, so pupils can see life outside of Northampton and their home.

“This will show them things are not as wonderful everywhere as we allow them to be here, and we’re linking in the school values of respect and compassion for different cultures.”

The hope is that the Ghanaian school will become the permanent sister school of The Abbey Primary, with regular updates to let them know how they are getting on following Nicole’s return to Northampton.