Hle Bee buildings

Hle Bee School has grown from the 2 buildings we first saw when we came. Here's a tour. The first building (below) is still built around Thazin's house, which you can see above the green tin (and therefore roasting) roof. Kindergarten B is in here. Fiona spent a lot of time last week showing how to run it like a nursery. In front of the house is a wee staff room, full of ants!

Below is the original second building. It holds 150 children in 3 classes - Kindergarten A where Fiona did some critical thinking work in groups on HOMES, a topic Forthview children in P1 and P2 will be investigaing too. One activity was that the children took home disposable cameras which Fiona will get developed in UK and the prints will be brought back with Forthview prints of the children's homes next year. We have to say that 150 children aged between 6 and 10 in this building is a nightmare. There is no space to move, never mind teach creatively. These children have no desks or chairs either as you will see in the next post on the blog. :(

This lovely long building below holds 2 Grade 2 classes with desks and chairs. This is where we held the teacher training session last Friday.

The Grade 3 and 4 building below is very near the toilets and pretty niffy!

Grade 5 and 6 share this huge new building below and there are less than 20 in each class. It seems strange to us when 150 Grade 1 and Kindergarten are squashed into the small building that Grade 5 and Grade 6 have so much space but resources here are prioritised to the oldest students. It's a great building as a wee breeze comes off the fields behind into the school. Thazin complains it's freezing!

To the right of the Grade 5 & 6 building is a house under construction for 5 teachers. This will be a luxury pad for them! Due to finish in a few weeks. Today the construction workers were trying to get the school's 2 cockerels to fight!

The construction workers live in this big house below which they share with the teacher Yan Yan.

This playground is out of bounds because it is the rainy season. Pity.

A shelter for the children to stay out of the sun made this week by Mon Sein (janny) and Mon Soe (cook).

The toilet block now has 7 toilets and they get the waste sucked out twice a year. I think it's due!

This is the tuck shop, selling all sorts of sugar treats and condensed milk to the children!

A side view of the tuck shop where the janny, his wife and baby live.

It's grown so big, hasn't it?