Some Answers from 8A

Dear 9D and Mr Scott

Yesterday we had a powerpoint presentation with 8A (I will be sending this to you soon, depending on the size of the file and whether the internet can cope with it). I am also hoping to put some photos up on the blog later on but will also send copies to Mr Scott.

In 8A and 8B there are approximately 45 students in each class. The age range is from 13 years old to 16 years old. Students repeat a school year if they fail their end of year exams.

We concentrated your questions and here are the answers so far.

1. You asked what classes the students took.

Here at Percy Mdala we call them 'Learning Areas' and these are the learning areas we follow:

English, Maths, Xhosa Technology, Social Sciences, Economic and Management Science, Arts and Culture, Life Orientation, Geography, Natural Science, Life Orientation.

In Life Orientation we learn:

Life skills
Learn about relationships and how to be assertive. We learn human rights, budgeting, and how to behave. We learn how to take good decisions and how to take responsibility for ourselves. We also learn about HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy.

In fact HIV/AIDS is included in almost all our learning areas in some form.

Social Sciences is the same as History and EMS is a combination of accounting, business economics and economics.

2. What is your timetable like?

We have 6 periods, or lessons, per day and they last around 50 minutes each.

The first class starts after registration at 8.10am and we have morning assembly on Mondays and Fridays first thing. We have Assembly outside and on Fridays we all sing in Xhosa.

Our timetable runs on an eight day cycle and our classes finish at 2pm.

We have no morning break. We have 4 lessons striaght and then a lunch break. We get approximately 40 minutes for lunch.

Sport only happen after lessons and is not part of the timetable. We play sport between 2pm and 2.45pm. Sport is not compulsory.

The sports we play are:

Netball – just girls
Soccer – boys
Rugby - boys
Table tennis – girls and boys
Cricket - boys
Golf – girls and boys

3. Do you have MSN?

Only one student in our class has a computer at home and he does not have access to it. So, we do not have MSN. ONly 12 of us (out of 45 students) have Cell Phones. We call the Cell Phones here not Mobile phones and when send a message we say we are sms-ing, not texting.

We are not allowed to use our cell phones in school (but some of us do anyway and then we have them confiscated by the teachers). We don’t get our phones back until our parents come and fetch them from the teachers.

4. How much do you know about Belfast?

Not much yet as we can’t get on to the website and see the BBC/Percy Mdala site.
We are waiting to see your presentations. Perhaps next lesson.

Note to 9D from Claire: The students are not familiar with Ireland or Northern Ireland or "The Troubles', as we call them.

One of your questions was 'Is your school like ours?' The students could not answer this because they have yet to see the website and your presentations.

I am going to post this now but hope to add pictures later on.

Please could 9D respond and send us some more questions. I am seeing both 8A and 8B tomorrow (Friday 20th).

I look forward to some more posts - it seems to have gone a little quiet!

All the best
Claire