Nursery staff plan Kenyan orphanage trip
GREENBANK Preparatory School Day Nursery staff Erin White and Natalie Walton hope to use the experience of spending two weeks working with severely mentally and physically disabled children in Kenya to improve further their own teaching.
The friends are the latest members of staff from Greenbank Preparatory School in Cheadle Hulme to visit The Port Reitz orphanage, some seven years after former pupil Harrison Wood, then aged only nine, inspired his school to adopt them as one their nominated charities.
Mother-of-two and Greenbank nursery leader Erin, 32, from Heald Green and nursery assistant Natalie Walton, 24, from Heaton Mersey, will suspend their duties at Greenbank for a two-week trip to Kenya in September and have been warned to expect a culture shock.
“Many Greenbank teachers have already visited Port Reitz and told us the experience is going to pull at our heart strings,” said Erin.
Natalie added: “I have worked in Uganda before, so I understand just how different life is like in the developing world and I know we can learn just as much from them as we can teach from our experience in England.
“In particular, the experience reinforces the value of resources.
“Every book, every pencil, every children’s toy is precious out there and I hope to bring that ethos back to Britain, where our children can be perhaps forgiven for thinking everything is disposable.”
The women will be working in the orphanage’s assessment centre, determining levels of disability, and also with their teachers discussing contemporary British teaching methods.