Eastham hosts visitor from Solomon Islands

Nov 26 2012 By Claire Reid

A TEACHER from the Solomon Islands has flown over to the UK to spend time working in an Eastham school.

Millfields Church of England Primary School in Eastham has hosted Belgen Saeni Garimai, a teacher who works at St Nicholas school in Honiara the capital of the Solomon Islands.

Rev Beth Glover from St Mary’s church came up with the idea to fly Belgen over to show her how a UK school works, so set about raising the £4000 to fly over her and her husband Alphonse.

Belgen is currently studying for her diploma in child development, and said that her time at Millfields has helped invaluably with her work in ‘classroom management’, she said: “Instead of reading the books I can just come here! It’s excellent; the methods they use here are so practical.

"I’m hoping to get some of the ideas from here and use them to help my school and not just my school but teachers all over my country. The way the teachers interact with the children and the activities they do are brilliant.”

Rev Glover got the idea when she was over in the Solomon Islands last year and spent some time at St Nicholas school, the school already has links to Millfields and she wanted to strength those links  and she hopes that having Belgen over here has helped to achieve that.

Belgen will be going back to St Nicholas with gifts from the church and school for the children, including pens, pencils and books. She presented Millfields with traditional toys and gifts from her country on arrival.

Rev Glover is hoping that next year they will be able to send over a teacher from Millfields to teach in Honiara.