“Do they know it’s Christmas time…”

It feels a little ironic listening to Band Aid whilst being out here in South Africa. We have tried our best to make Christmas special for the few children who are left at the home over Christmas. Many have now be re-homed, either back to their families or to more permanent accommodation, whilst others are spending Christmas with safe relatives and will be returning to Thembelihle in January. I must say it is much quieter here now that there are only 8 or so children left…much different to the 26 I’m used to! We have had some interesting new admissions and children with extremely challenging behaviour, but with each one I remember why I am here J

The lead up to Christmas involved making paper snowflakes, tree decorations and stockings with the kids helping  to decorating the house, office and classroom…I must say their decorating skills are impressive! The day started early and involved lots of smiles hugs and screams of excitement as they saw the pile of presents under the tree… brand new clothes in time for church and new toys to play with…smiles all round! Church was a shorter service than usual and we all enjoyed singing Christmas carols in the heat! The children were then treated to a bouncy castle in the back garden and a Braai!

Thanks to everyone back home who donated presents, clothes and money…they had a super day! J

So…Do they know it’s Christmas time…? – They certainly do here at Thembelihle Home!

Brandy

The rest of the month has been spent being bitten to death by trillions of insects, finally hanging the mosquito net up above my bed, finding a new love of brandy and egg scented shampoo (Mthatha never ceases to amaze me), crawling cockroaches and swelteringly hot days followed by thunderstorms at night…WAHHH! Only in South Africa J

Exams, exams, exams…

Yes for you Scots out there, having the end of the school year in Nov/Dec may seem normal, but for me it was strange to be writing up the end of year exam papers after having been here for only 3 months! With Thembelihle being a home school and having no set syllabus, it was up to me to write the exam papers, invigilate the exams, create the mark schemes, mark the papers and write up the reports for each child at the end of it! So November was spent frantically making sure the children understood everything I had taught them over the past few months, holding extra revision sessions outside of lesson times, one-on-one tutoring and mini tests in lessons. I think the biggest challenge was writing the papers and finding the right balance between phrasing the questions in a way they will understand, whilst considering the different abilities within each class…much trickier than it sounds! Invigilating the exams involved sitting in on 2 hour long exams, although I must say I did enjoy the silence…I think it is the quietest I have ever heard them! Marking the exams was more rewarding than I thought it would be. Although there were some silly mistakes and some disappointing answers, overall I was very proud of every single one of them! They did me proud, and I’m am so happy with the A*’s, but more so the E’s which the less capable English speakers achieved – their faces when they saw they had passed…!