Nicola on a Mission!

Hi!
I thought you might all like to know about the children here. There are at least 3 primary schools in this area that we know about, each with lots more students than in England. School starts at 7 AM and finishes by 1.30. After school, all the children stay around playing games and don’t go straight home. On Thursday afternoons we run some after school clubs, like football, cricket, drama and dance for the students. They don’t have many resources and still use blackboards in the classroom s. There are some posters on the classroom walls, but no displays of work. The teachers are still allowed to hit the students on the hand with wooden or metal sticks if they get something wrong or misbehave. Some of the time, there isn’t even a teacher in the class, so the students can’t learn.
There are no lovely green areas for the children to play on, just concrete or dusty spaces.
In SA, you start school at 6 years old. Before that, you go to pre school. You stay in school until 18, when you take your matric exam.