In November, Sabre’s Senior Programme Officer, Lord Acquah, spent two weeks in the UK on a study tour which provided a fantastic opportunity to exchange best practice and professional insights on early years education.

Coordinated by our volunteer Education Advisor, Sonya Hinton, Lord spent time in a variety of UK early years education settings over two weeks, fully immersing himself in the classrooms and with the teachers, who warmly welcomed him.

Lord also had the opportunity to present Sabre’s work to students from Oxford University studying for their Masters in Public Policy. With many of the students studying through government scholarships from countries around the world there were some fascinating conversations about early years education globally and what lessons can be taken from Sabre’s work in Ghana.

It was a busy two weeks for Lord, who has travelled back to Ghana full of new ideas and insights to share with the Sabre team and the teachers we train.

Reflecting on the experience, Lord shared:

“It was such an honour to embark on this study tour to the UK. The tour exposed me to different ways of running play-based learning and a deep immersion into the early years education curriculum and its implementation in the UK.

During the time I spent at the schools, I had the opportunity to play a role as the assistant teacher to help me familiarize myself with the daily activities and classroom environment. This also helped me to understand the different learning environments and other practical ways of handling 4 and 5 year olds.

I was able to engage with support staff and parent school link workers on how Sabre could better help parents to support their children at home with their learning.

In addition, I had the great opportunity of sharing Sabre’s work with Masters students from Oxford University who asked some fantastic questions about the impact we are making in Ghana. It was encouraging to see how the students understood the importance of our work, and many of them wished to stay in touch with Sabre.

I was also delighted to meet a senior lecturer from Winchester University to discuss teacher training programmes and some of the theories behind them.

Special gratitude to Sonya, Sabre’s Education Advisor, Rachel Hinton from FCDO, Freshta Karim from Oxford University and all the staff from the schools I visited in the UK. You were all amazing!”