The Aga Khan Primary School, Kampala

Introduction

The Aga Khan Primary School strives to create a harmonious balance between academic demands, sporting and cultural activities and community life.

The School challenges pupils to be intellectually inquisitive and socially conscious. The School believes that while what students know is vital, the true and realistic measure of a student's education is the ability to analyse what they do not know.

The School emphasises an integrated approach to teaching and learning whereby topics from different subject areas are connected together and integrated in a given theme to allow learning by exploration in a more natural, meaningful and interconnected manner to reflect interconnectedness of knowledge in the real life situation.

School Population

The Aga Khan Primary School has a student population of over 850 students. English is the medium of instruction and the students (from around 32 nations) study the Ugandan Primary Schools Curriculum, Primary 1 – 7. The Head Teacher is assisted by 34 teachers and 20 administrative support staff.

The School has small class sizes to ensure provision of individual support and encouragement to the students in order to reach their full potential. All graduating students make successful transition to secondary schools of their choice and compete favourably with their counterparts and later on make successful careers in life.

Sports

In addition to curriculum subjects, the School offers a wide variety of co-curricular activities that include indoor and outdoor games and sports activities such as Lawn Tennis, Badminton, Hockey, Basketball, Soccer, Swimming and athletics.

Members of the swimming squad participate in national and regional Junior Swimming Championships. We compete in national and regional swimming competitions and win medals and trophies. The School hosts an annual swimming gala with the support of Uganda Swimming Federation.

The School holds annual sports days. The events are characterized by high attendance of parents and enthusiastic participation of all children in the various activities.

All podium finishers are awarded with medals and certificates of achievement and participation.

Home School Links

The School has an open door policy where parents make appointments to meet the class teachers and school administration to discuss and address issues as they may arise from time to time.

Routinely, teachers keep parents up-to-date with their child’s academic performance and social welfare through the School diary. Parents too are expected to send their communication to teachers through the diary and each party is supposed to sign in the diary; evidence that the message has been sent and received.

On termly basis, class teachers share with parents topic outlines in the main subjects of the curriculum so that parents can read ahead with their children and monitor their progress as the term progresses. Student-led conferences provide an opportunity to students, parents and teachers to discuss individual students’ academic progress. Following student-led conferences, targets are set for the students to achieve by the end of term/year and this practice helps in tracking individual learner’s progress.

Community Service

The school's Community Service Club supports the underprivileged members of society by donating scholastic materials and clothes to St. Noah Primary School and Sophia Moslem Community Nursery School. Both schools are in a rural part of Wakiso district. Funds for the Community Service Club are generated during Casual Wear Days and Car Wash Drives. Students’ donations have enabled the Community Service Club to establish a library room, make library shelves and purchase of readers. The major focus is to develop a reading culture in the school. This has now largely been accomplished by several book donations mainly readers. Through the above activities, children have learnt that small efforts can make a difference in transforming the lives of disadvantaged communities in our society, which is the core objective of Community Service Club.