July until end of term (4th August)

The rains came in early June this year but they did bring extra water to allow us to cultivate the school gardens and allow children to clear weeds and plant a crop before the end of term.

The driving force in this endeavour is Mr Omar Gaye (LB 6 teacher), wearing a blue tee-shirt with the children. Traditionally the ladies tend gardens in The Gambia but Omar has the boys helping too with heavier work.

In the Nursery we continue to make good use of our TV and DVD set-up to show children educational programmes. Sally Ceesay is shown with N1 doing just this.

Meanwhile N3 are completing their school year before going onto the Lower Basic School in September and showing how well most can read (and concentrate).

The last month of the school year treats students to tests and exams. This photo shows Skills 1 and 2 doing just this, in the Hall.

Lower Basic were also  doing their end of year exams.

We had a visit from the Education Department's area cluster monitor, who regularly comes to keep an eye on us all!

The rains (and accompanying strong winds) got much worse towards the end of the month, flooding surrounding areas and damaging sand roads and many properties. This picture, taken from a drone, shows the story within the nearby Kololi and Manjai low-lying areas.

Although Sunrise is on top of a small hill, the winds and rains well and truly tested our corrugated roof, exposing loose sections and some corrosion of the 10 year old fabric. We've had repairs done now and hopefully produced something nearer a watertight finish. We've not painted inside yet, waiting until the drying season, to check repair quality.

The other major maintenance problem is that the heavy rains exposed the poor condition of our Lower Basic submerged septic tank (called a soak-away in Gambia). A cave-in of the underground structure produced a sink-hole in the area between the school gates and the entrance, near the LB toilets. This obviously had to be made safe and secure plus the manufacture of another soak-away. This is now well underway behind the building but the change to reconnect the tank to the LB toilet block, with pipe-work going in completely the opposite direction, is still to be completed. This is proving to be quite expensive work and will take some time to complete.

The end of term is now with us and school will open again at the end of September.

June

We have been running our registration processes for sometime now. Parents and guardians come for vacant places throughout the school, mostly in Nursery 1 and Skills 1 (the entrance years). The sign is displayed on the gate and word of mouth communicates this message.

We've been struggling with water supply again. As a precaution we have put back the drinking water buckets in key areas of the school. These are much in demand in the hot and humid conditions.

Playtimes aren't usually affected by weather, however, and feverish activities are common!

We captured a nice picture of Fatou Nyassi, working quietly in the sewing room to measure out white basin for one of the practicals underway.

  Early rains bring some disruption to school as flooded areas drain away, but these rains bring much needed moisture to crops and gardens within The Gambia.

Our students are doing practical work, whenever we have water. Skills 1 are posing with Mr Darboe looking on, as they gather their material prior to adding the dye to the cloth.

Then later Skills 1 are seen posing against the drying materials on the lines in school.

This month we have end of term exams and assessments for graduating students. LB6 and Skills 3 can be seen in the hall taking part in these important exams.

Skills 3 are doing practical exams too and samples of their hand-made bead work can be seen in the picture here.

We've also had mock NAT exams for our LB 5 year, who went on to take the real exams towards the end of June. The mocks give children their first chance at doing this sort of test and makes sure that they have the best chance of a good score in this National examination.

Four of our staff helped in SOS to supervise the NAT tests within this nearby school. Mr Cham, Omar Gaye, Fatoumatta Sighateh and Sirrah Sambou all helped at SOS during the NAT exams as external supervisors, earning a few extra Dalasi for themselves