Year 12 Trip to Mai Chau 2018

Today Year 12 excitedly departed for their much-anticipated trip to Mai Chau.

Day 1:

Today we arrived in the mountains of Mai Chau surrounded by blue skies and sunshine. We settled into our homestays in Lac village and enjoyed the delicious home-cooked food.

We visited the White Thai ethnic minority group forty minutes away to explore and meet the village leaders who told us all about their way of life and challenges living there.

Groups explored the project sites and looked at the work of the previous BIS CAS teams and other schools who have contributed to developments here.

This part of the trip has allowed students to carry out the first few of the five CAS cycle stages which are to investigate, prepare and demonstrate.  Students should work through the five stages of CAS for all of their CAS experiences and show this on their Managebac portfolio throughout the eighteen months of their IBDP course.

The evening was spent enjoying another home cooked dinner together and then enjoying card and board games in groups.

Tomorrow we will split into the three tutor groups to carry out various CAS experiences to build upon our ‘White Thai ethnic group CAS project’ together.

12B will go to the project site to help build a bridge and road and then try their hand at rice farming.

12 will trek in the morning then take cooking classes in the houses of the local people before visiting the local primary school to teach English workshops and games.

12S will enjoy basket weaving, bicycle riding and raft building in Lac village.

Each day the groups will rotate.

Day 2:

Today students split into their three tutor groups to carry out various CAS experiences.

They enjoyed bike rides, hikes and raft building. One group started the service project with the local villagers and made great progress on the road and bridge development.

The group that visited the primary school learned a great deal from their experiences about teaching English workshops and games.

We saw some great dancing skills from one group which was very impressive!

Having had a lovely dinner and some good reflection time at the homestay we are now relaxing ready to start new experiences tomorrow.

Day 3:

Another great day on the Mai Chau CAS trip! The short lunchtime downpour of rain did not dampen any Year 12 team spirits as all the afternoon activities went ahead as planned.

Today 12S tutor group visited the primary school and delivered their English workshops and games successfully to the local village classes having already completed a hike through Mai Chau in the morning.

12B tutor group enjoyed building and racing their rafts and learning to weave baskets with the local villagers before riding bicycles around the Mai Chau villages in the afternoon.

12I tutor group had the tough day completing their service work with the White Thai minority villagers. They continued the work started by 12B yesterday mixing more cement and moving more rocks for the bridge and dam foundations.

Local dancing skills continued to be learned with another class today ready for a sharing performance tomorrow at our farewell party with the villagers.

Looking forward to completing our rotation tomorrow before our final service work on Friday morning.