Give 220 Disadvantaged Children a Brighter Future

As COVID restrictions eased and we were back in class teaching English to disadvantaged students, our teachers heard the chorus along the corridors: ‘when will Coconut Club start again Teacher??!!’ Coconut Club is our afterschool programme for over 200 children aged 6 to 18, who have to live at school during term time, due to familial reasons. The club offers the children extracurricular activities such as skateboarding, badminton, board games, arts and crafts as well as Computer Lab sessions thanks to kind donors. PHBGTU Teachers and volunteers were delighted to recommence the club, offering the children after-school fun whilst giving them opportunities to develop new skills and self-confidence.

The children who had been living at school before the lockdowns told those who were new all about Coconut Club highlights such as Birthday Parties! With restrictions easing further, at the end of November, we were thrilled to be able to run a joint birthday party on the school grounds for forty of the children in primary school who live at school during term time. The children’s excitement was intense!

Senior year students from the local United World College Thailand helped out. They planned fun activities: the children played dodgeball, badminton, were engrossed in a painting project and, most fun of all, learned the chicken dance and danced Gangnam Style!

Our teachers and volunteers had gathered items that had been kindly donated by Friends of the Foundation and they laid them out on tables. After the fun and games, the children were able to choose their very own birthday gifts! First, pick up a tote bag, then preloved clothing, new flip flops, preloved soft toys for the littlest ones. Toothbrushes & paste and beautiful stationery. It was lovely to see the children so happy with their decisions. The party was rounded off with ice cream for all! A very special day.

We are hugely thankful to our donors from around the world for giving the children the opportunity to learn and grow. With your support, we are helping the children change their futures.

Thankfully, this new school year, we are back to face-to-face learning in school as Phuket started to relax some of the COVID rules to allow students back to classes. Our teachers are once again able to provide English language education for disadvantaged primary school children aged 7 to 12 years old.

But it’s not plain sailing, especially for the youngest children we teach in Primary Year 1 which is made up of 30 little energetic and curious 7-year-olds. These children have missed 2 years of Kindy due to the pandemic, as the Kindergartens all over Thailand were closed to keep the little ones safe. This means that many of the children came to class at the start of the school year with very poor motor skills, let alone finely tuned ones. This was also the first time most of the students will have sat in a seat let alone been in a school setting. In the first weeks of school, the students tried hard to keep up with their new surroundings and long school hours. Classes run from 8:15 a.m. (students must be in school by 7:30 a.m.) and they are dismissed at 3:30 p.m. There is no nap time.

But, our teachers don’t let this stop the learning and the fun! This year in their first ever English classes, the 7-year-olds will learn so much: the alphabet, greetings, command words, singular and plural, feelings, self-introduction, weather, days of the week and school objects. The class is always buzzing with energy, and you will often find learning happening through songs and games. Meanwhile, in Science in English classes, the students will explore topics through experiments and experiential learning. Learning in a second language their topics require them to understand lots of new words about living things and non-living things, parts of a plant and different animals. In Mathematics in English, the students learn through games, quizzes, and competitions. They will be counting and writing numbers, comparing and ordering numbers, number bonds, and addition and subtraction.

Students of all ages always arrive in their Phuket Has Been Good To Us English classes with big smiles on their faces eager to learn (we only see this through their ‘smiling eyes’ as we still have to wear masks at all times whilst in school). Anyone seeing these huge smiles would not be able to stop themselves from smiling right back.

We are hugely thankful to still be here for the children after such difficult times. The children are always eager to learn and absorb everything we teach them.  Our teachers are so grateful to our donors from all around the world for giving them the opportunity to nurture the children, see them grow and watch their English progress.

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