St. Peter’s

My school for the next few months is called St. Peter’s. It’s a Catholic primary school in Mokhotlong town. This is the sign welcoming you to our school – our students are known as the anacondas.

Our school has a reception class (a new thing in Lesotho) so they can come to school from 4 years old. After that the children go into classes 1 – 7.  Children can begin school at any age and they have to pass a test at the end of each year before they go up to the next, so there can be many different ages in each class. For example, in class 7, the students are aged 
between 12 and 18.

The school is very popular, so many children come here. This means that classes are very big, usually about 90. One of my classes is Class 6 which has 97 children in – here they are!

I’m back!

Hello,

For anyone who didn’t read this blog last year, my name’s Claire Bradford and I’m a teacher from Cardiff. I’m in Lesotho for five months on a placement sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government, to promote links between Lesotho and Wales, and to assist with ESDGC development. The blog and linked photo albums are intended as a learning resource for pupils and teachers.

Last year I taught in the capital of Lesotho, Maseru. This time I’m in the mountain town of Mokhotlong. You can see where it is on the map here.

From this week until the end of May, I’ll be teaching in a school called Saint Peter’s Primary School, but also visiting other primary and secondary schools in the area, so will post up stories, reports, information and photos about the schools and daily life. I’ll also be making short videos to use as teaching resources, but uploading them to a separate website when I return in June as the internet connection here can be unreliable. If you would like any videos before then, just post a comment and I can upload specific ones. 

If you would like to ask me, my students or colleagues any questions about Mokhotlong or Lesotho, please feel free to post a comment.

School’s Out!

 Because Lesotho is in the southern Hemisphere (below the equator) they have winter from June to September, and summer from December to March – the opposite of the UK.

 

So Hoohlo Primary has broken up for the winter holidays. Like every school in Lesotho, they finished this week and will start back at school on 1^st August. The children were very busy on the last couple of days cleaning and tidying the school. Even the gardening equipment was put away clean and shiny.

This week was also my last week teaching in Lesotho. The children and staff at the school have made me feel very welcome since I arrived in January, and gave me a wonderful farewell party. There were dances, songs and drama, as well as short speeches from different people in the school community.

As I’m not in school anymore, this will be my last blog post. I will still put up photos in the albums of the children, school and places in Lesotho. If teachers need any specific photos, I’m in Lesotho for another week, so please just post a comment asking for them and I can take them.

Thanks for reading and sala hantle – hwyl - bye!

Basotho Homes

 This week some class 5 children took me to their houses in Ha Hoohlo. Ha Hoohlo is a village right next to the border post with South Africa. It has a few very big houses along the main road, but most people live behind these in smaller, and very different houses.

What type of home do you live in? A flat? A terraced house? A semi-detached house? Detached? It’s very unlikely you live in a round house, but some people in Lesotho do. Mafaesa showed us his rondavel where he lives with his grandmother. He likes to play football outside with his friends.

 

Refiloe also lives Ha Hoohlo with her grandmother and sister. She lives in a detached brick house and likes to watch television.

Bokang lives with his mother in this house. There are several houses in this terrace. They surround a garden where he plants vegetables to eat.

Africa Day and Heroes’ Day

On Wednesday we had the day off school for Africa and Heroes’ Day. These are 2 different celebrations that used to be held on different days, but were combined a few years ago.

Africa Day is a day to celebrate the Organisation of African Unity, which is now called the African Union. It is a special day all over Africa.

In the 1800s, most African countries were colonies – ruled by other countries. These other countries were Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Holland and Germany. In the 1950s and 1960s, most of these colonies gained their independence and could rule themselves. The Organisation of African Unity was created in 1963 to help the free African countries work together.

Heroes’ Day is special to Lesotho and very much like our Remembrance Day. The Basotho remember the heroes of their nation, like Moshoeshoe I, who created the country.

People remember the soldiers and civilians who have fought in wars, like the 1500 Basotho who fought in World War I and the 20,000 who fought in World War II. There is a memorial to these soldiers in Maseru, and the king of Lesotho goes there to pay his respects on Heroes’ Day, just like the queen of England does at the cenotaph on Remembrance Day.