Classrooms and Sights of the City

It was a bit cloudy when we headed up to the school this morning at 7am but within half an hour, it was beautiful. The kids were looking for shade every time we ventured outside to wait for the next activity or class!

Madame Perraud, my counterpart here, took our kids into  her classroom and explained the french education system to them.  Their eyes grew wider and wider as the timetable for their age group was displayed and then the workload explained!! On top of all that, kids their age spend at least an hour each night but often 2 hours on their homework!  They now have a healthy respect for their life in little old NZ at Taupo Intermediate!

                                                                     Listening intently

The Library for a school of 860 students!

The following tour of the school was also an eye-opener for them.  They are very bare compared to our classrooms and the library amazingly small with few books compared to ours.

The bus collected us at 9.30 for another trip into the central city to visit the Museum of Noumea. This was interesting and explained how Noumea was a penal colony originally and how Asian people were brought in to work with the kanaks on the planations and in the mines in the 1800s. Vietnamese came along with Japanese but the Vienamese now make up a certain percentage of the population. Their country was a Protectorate of France in those days and French is still spoken in Vietnam, a signal of their past link to France