While it was hard for me to get used to at first, I eventually was able to see the pattern of how the schedule functions week by week.
Overall, the students have school from January to March. April is a midterm break, then they go back to school until June. July has a midterm break as well. Then, they are back in school from August to November, with a break in December. This means that students will go to school in May and June, where students in the U.S. are typically done with the school year around this time. This means that Botswana students go to school all year round.
Students start school at 7:30 a.m. and end at 4:20 p.m. On Mondays and Fridays, they have a whole school assembly where they sing, listen to announcements and have inspiration bestowed upon them. On Wednesdays, they have house assemblies in the morning. Students in Botswana are all placed into houses. At my school, there are seven houses, all named after different animals. Black Rhino is the house I am in, and students in this group give presentations at their house assembly meetings. They are usually about some sort of code, as Black Rhino typically includes students who take accounting, math and business classes. These houses allow students to feel more like part of a community. Then, students will be in class from 7:50 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. From 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., they have their tea break. Then, they are back in classes until 1:40 p.m. From 1:40 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., they have lunch. The school cafeteria often offers meat and vegetables to students. Then, students go into a study period where they study in the library or in their designated classrooms until 4:20 p.m., when all the students leave to go home.
