Page 9 - link magazine

The Link Magazine • April 2003
Building links between West Swindon and South Africa

Peatmoor Community Primary School has put great energy into helping Dihlabeng School in Clarens in the Free State over the last 18 months.
Governors Steve Atyeo and Jan Partridge report on a visit over half term with headteacher Terri Peacoock and teachers Rachel Brittan, Julia Hooker
and Kirsty Williams.
Dihlabeng is a multiracial appeal went out for help
Christian school set up on barely six months be-
a very small scale in 2000. fore.
It has grown rapidly and In short this was an
now caters for over fifty J inspirational visit for us,
children aged from 6 to 14. for the Peatmoor teach-
From the beginning ac- ers and also for the chil-
commodation has been dren and staff at
very limited and as the Dihlabeng.
school has grown in size The benefit from
this has reached a critical greater understanding
stage. A new classroom ^" vW by children atPeatmoor
was desperately needed. ."` is also tremendous. It is
Peatmoor had for some- our belief that this and
time been raising funds for similar links between
the school. In November Working together to build a better f itru'e, from it ft, schools in the Swindon
2002 this became focused Jo Starkey, Lauren Le Roux, Rachel Brittain, Julia Hooker, area should be devel-
on specifically raising Kirsty Williams, Steve Ateo, Nini Lentsa, Jan Partridge oped.
£3,000 to build two new
classrooms. Through the hard
fundraising work of school staff,
governors, the children and par-
ents, the target was achieved and
building started in January 2003.
We as governors wanted to sup-
port the teachers and also see how
the building work was progress-
ing, so we joined the group on the
visit in February.

Design,
!rc hnologyj_t
work at
Dihlabeng;

The children and staff of the
school welcomed us very warmly
and we were involved in working
with the teachers in various class-
room activities. These included a
design and technology project and
a sharing of playground songs and
games.
We also took the opportunity to
stay overnight with some of the
parents of the children in the local
township and visited other schools
in the area.
At all times we were made to
feel like honoured guests and the
response of the children was an
inspiration. The building of the
new classrooms is progressing well
and has now reached the stage of
having the roof put on. It should
be available for use after Easter, a
lovely thought considering that the