When I came to teach at Bingham I didn’t expect the opportunity to attend a conference for professional development (for some reason called 'Africa 2.014') where the participants are drawn from schools across the globe. The venue was a large (3-form entry) international school in Addis which uses the American curriculum.

There are often freebies at events such as these and appropriately for us it was an umbrella as we are still in the rainy season. The umbrella was christened during this event on a couple of occasions too.

The thrust of the conference was applying technology to learning in schools. A fine prospect for the school in Hong Kong that one participant told us about where each of her pupils is issued with a laptop and an "iPad" as standard. A fine prospect too for the host school which has an enormous generator supplying constant electricity and reliable internet which worked at a very reasonable speed. However for us at Bingham it was ‘potential’ rather than ‘reality’ that our staff were seeing.

True to form there was an ice breaker part way through most sessions. On one occasion, I was partnered with Koffi who taught French to 12-14 year olds in the Ivory Coast. A three minute ‘rock, paper, scissors’ tournament was proposed. Have you ever tried explaining the game to a West African who has never encountered such a pastime before? By the end he was fairly bemused by the whole concept.

The value of the conference for me was being able to meet other Early Years teachers and share ideas and experiences. I was also surprised as I began to realise how developed the British curriculum is. On several occasions things were proposed as if they were recent innovations, whereas they have been established in British practice for some years.

There was also the opportunity to browse stalls displaying local crafts during breaks. I bought a bracelet. How mundane you might think; but this one is made from coffee beans and bits of bullet casings-what else!