Category: World School

My Son’s Brain Is Weird

Here in Aqaba, a coastal town in Jordan which is gunning for second city status but has all the verve and vigour of Bournemouth on...

It's Panda Time!

Chengdu is proud of its pandas. Extremely proud. Abstract pandas stand tall in the main square, opposite a gargantuan Chairman Mao and a stone’s throw...

Learning Mandarin: Week 4

“If you finish this book,” Sophie reiterates, “You’ll be able to get all around China with no problems.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible when...

Learning Mandarin: Week 3

A week to go before we head out of Kunming into the great wide open, over 30 hours of language lessons in, and we are,...

Learning Mandarin: Week 2

So the boy and I have completed our second week learning Mandarin in China. We’ve only got a week’s more learning before we’re out on...

Learning Mandarin: Week 1

Learning from our experiences in Indonesia, I figured it would be wise to start our sojourn in China by actually studying a bit of Mandarin...

Homework, AKA Shouty Time

“Do you have homework tonight?” “Yes. It’s quite hard.” “Oh.” We are in our local pizzeria, for a change. The homework thing, after a year...

Class lesson on snakes: children handling a reticulated python.

Back to School!

Can You Take a Child out of School for a Year? I recently came across a parents group arguing against longterm family travel on the...