Hallo and welcome to Bakoteh Annex Lower Basic School in the Gambia, West Africa . We are so glad we are going to be friends. Let us show

you where The Gambia is.

Here is the world. Can you see Africa?

The Gambia is the smallest main land country in Africa. It’s on the west coast. It is shown with a red arrow. It’s the shape of a worm.

It is a long thin country 40 miles north and south of the river Gambia. It’s about the size of Cornwall and Devon and has 1.8 million people. Bakoteh is south of the river about ten miles from the capital, Banjul. It is here the red arrow is pointing.

Bakoteh

There are over 2630 pupils in our school aged 7 to 13. We come from many different ethnic

groups or tribes, like Mandinkas or Wolloffs. There are not enough classes for everyone so the

school operates two shifts with some children coming in the morning and the others in the

afternoon.

Our school is divided into four kundas or houses - for sports

purposes. They are Red Kunda, Blue Kunda, white Kunda and Green Kunda. It’s always an

interesting competition between the kundas when we

are doing the sports activities.

Hello,We are happy to be your friends.

The Head Teacher told us

that we are now twinned with

you.We are so

excited about it.

This is our classroom. We are 45 pupils and we sit three to a desk.

We have lessons in maths, English,

Social and Environmental

Studies today. We are looking forward to

becoming friends and writing to

each other.

In grade three we do the following subjects: English, Maths, Science, Social and

Environmental Studies (S.E.S) as our core subjects. We also do

Quantitave and Verbal Aptitude, Islamic Studies, Arts and Craft and Population and family Life

Education. My favourite is (S.E.S)

Although we first learn to speak in

our tribal languages, like mandinka and

Wollof we learn in English and

practice reading it out aloud

This is our tap. We have two in

the school.We use the water for

drinking and also for washing our

hands before and after eating .

We have six toilet blocks in our

school.Two are for the

boys , two for the girls and two for

the teachers.

Here are the vendors who sell food to us at break and lunch time.

Hello friends,This is a banana tree growing in

our school grounds. We

water it everyday.

Would you like us to sent you

some bananas?

We have two seasons here –

the rainy season and the dry

season. And the sun rises and sets

about 7am and 7pm every day all year round. How is it with you in

England?

We hope you have enjoyed learning about our school. We wonder how it is with you. Do

you have a school inform? What lessons do you have. Please

write and tell us – now we are friends we want to know you better. Bye

for now.