In December 2025, Hazel’s Footprints Trust gave £2,326 to Porridge and Pens Ghana through the Big Give Christmas Challenge, where our donation was match funded. The grant pays for the training of two teachers, Irene and Junior, at Brightlingsea Academy in Kumasi. Rather than a building, we are investing in two people and the difference they can make in their classrooms for years to come.
Jemma Williams, founder of Porridge and Pens Ghana, has sent the Trustees an update.
Small changes, already helping
Many of the Academy’s pupils are dealing with poverty and unstable housing, and the school is seeing more children who struggle with attention or behaviour. In the UK these children would likely be recognised as having additional needs; in Kumasi they often go without diagnosis or support.
The training is helping Irene and Junior respond. Irene has made small changes to where children sit and how she gives instructions, and her more vulnerable pupils are finding it easier to stay engaged. Junior, Jemma says, “has been particularly good at noticing the children who may need extra support”, and is helping other teachers look at behaviour differently where it might once have been misunderstood.
None of this needs expensive resources. It needs a wider bank of teaching strategies, which is exactly what the training provides.
Reaching beyond two teachers
The school runs weekly team-teaching sessions, peer observations and teacher walkarounds as part of the training, and Jemma reports more conversation between staff and more confidence in trying new approaches. In her words, “this training is already reaching beyond just the two teachers directly involved.”
Irene and Junior were recruited locally and come from the same communities as their pupils. “They arrive early, they are reliable, and they care about doing the job properly.”
Discipline with dignity
Brightlingsea Academy banned corporal punishment more than ten years ago, one of the first schools in Kumasi to do so, at a time when studies suggest over 90% of Ghanaian teachers still use it. For Irene and Junior, who grew up in a system that punished physically, teaching the Academy’s way is a cultural shift, and one they have embraced.
Around the school
Flooding is becoming a problem in the school’s village. Two spots become unsafe in heavy rain, and teachers take turns to meet children there and carry them across. Porridge and Pens has now raised the money for a bridge over the worst crossing. The school also opened a small boarding facility in November 2025 for children in the most difficult circumstances, with evening tuition to help them catch up.
“In a school like ours,” Jemma writes, “investing in staff makes a real difference.”
