Moving again and a walk in the moonlight!

Hello once again! Well I’ve got quite a lot of news for you this time….we have finally moved into a lovely bungalow which is surrounded by a beautiful garden. I am really happy to be here. It is wonderful to be able to sit outside so much and I love watching the birds, butterflies and lizards that frequent the garden. There are several pairs of sunbirds (which are very brightly coloured and are similar to hummingbirds) that feed on the nectar from the flowers in the garden. There is one tree in particular with small green fruits and large yellow bell-like flowers that they love. This grows just across from our patio, so it is wonderful to sit and watch these tiny birds with sparkling feathers as they dart from flower to flower.



We are gradually getting sorted in our house, we went out yesterday to buy a lot of plates, glasses and cutlery, and have to buy a lot more furniture as this is a much bigger place than our last one. We have made it quite homely already (we only moved two weeks ago) and have some pictures up on the walls, and have curtains up in the bedrooms. It takes much longer to get some things here. For example, it’s not just a case of going into a furniture shop and buying things. Very often you have to get people round to your house and explain what you want and they go away and make it. We actually had a very good Nigerian artist at the house this morning. We wanted her to paint 3 pictures for us, so we explained what we wanted and showed her what size they should be, and she is going away to paint them. They will be ready in two weeks…which isn’t bad really!


We went on a long walk on Friday evening. It was called the Full Moon Hash which involved a big group of people following paper trails that had been set earlier in the day. Some people followed the runners trail, and some the walkers. Guess which one I followed??! It was a beautiful full moon, and we found that we hardly needed torches to light our way. The walk went all over a wild part of Abuja that was not built up, so it was quite exciting! At the end was a huge barbecue with plastic tables and chairs to sit on, overlooking the lights of the city…it was very beautiful! I did feel very tired on Saturday, however, and treated myself to a wonderful pedicure (a foot massage) at one of the local hotels. It had been a long and dusty walk, and I felt that I had earned that treat!

Speaking of dust, the Harmattan (the wind that brings dust down from the Sahara desert…do you remember?) is starting, and some days it hides the sun. It is not too bad at the moment, but I am not looking forward to when it covers everything in red dust! The good thing is that it helps to keep the temperature down (which is about 30degrees C at the moment)

At school, I hope to get our emails through to you next week. Mrs Cox and Mrs Jones will be writing with you, and I will get our two oldest classes to write to you. I hope that this will be successful, as it would be lovely to be able to write from one school to another, and exchange our news.

That’s about all for now; I hope that you like the photos of our new house. Next time I will include some of the birds and also some of my school.
Lots of love to you all,
Mrs Sanchez xxxx

Inspectors, packing and more packing!!

Hello all again! Hope you all had a good break! I haven’t had half term really. We had two days holiday earlier for Eid al Fitr which celebrates the end of Ramadan (a Muslim festival). We are also having a day off next Friday (Halloween!!)

Last Monday we had a visit from 6 lady inspectors. They arrived at about 8am and stayed with us for the morning. They were all dressed in traditional African attire, complete with headdresses. They wanted to have a good look at all the paperwork that we had in place, and also had a quick visit of the classrooms. They asked me a variety of questions, and then recommended that we bought a stack of their books for recording things that happen in school. They stayed for snacks and then took their lunch away in take out boxes! It was rather a strange morning, and I felt very uneasy…not knowing what to expect! Some of the ladies were very jolly, and they reported back to say that the teaching was good, and the school was very colourful and well-organised. They are due to send their written report after about 3 weeks. Yet another new Nigerian experience for me!!

I am writing this surrounded yet again with packing boxes!! We are moving to a bungalow later this week. We hope that we will start the move on Thursday, and complete it on Friday. There is still quite a lot of work to be completed on the bungalow, and we are hoping that the main things will be done before moving day!

Our new bungalow is on a large compound, and is surrounded by garden. The best thing about it is that it is so quiet! Our apartment where we are at the moment is on a very busy road, which is noisy 24 hours a day, which sometimes gives us disturbed nights…so we are really looking forward to some peace and quiet. There are also lots of mature bushes and trees in the garden which attract all kinds of birds and butterflies. I will take a lot of photos so that I can include these on my next blog!!

We have a new IT teacher at our school, who is busily working on a way to get us able to email you in Holton le Clay. I hope that we can set this up for after our Halloween break. It will be great fun to be able to write to you directly, and for you to do the same.

That’s about all for now, as I still have a lot more boxes to pack (I really don’t know where all these things have come from!!) Hope you have a Happy Halloween, and I look forward to hearing from you really soon!

Lots of love, Mrs. Sanchez xxxx

Welcome back!

Well here I am again after a very long break! I was actually away from Nigeria for 10 weeks! I had a very fun holiday on a narrow boat with my two daughters for a week and then had two weeks in Greece. This was all very pleasant.

I was ready to come back to Abuja on 22nd August, to train the staff and then re-open the school on the 2nd September. Unfortunately, my visa (which is a piece of paper saying that you have permission to go into a country) had not come through. I was not able to return with my husband and was actually delayed until 11th September!!

I was really sad not to be at school for the re-opening after the summer break. The school has really grown now, and we have over 80 children there now! We now have 6 classes…Koala class, panda, beaver, bunny, pony and dinosaur. It is getting to be a very big school, and we only have room for about another 10 pupils…..then we are full!

I had lots of new faces to recognise and lots of new names to learn! Everyone was very pleased to see me when I finally arrived, and I felt like the queen walking in to a royal party!! I now have lots of catching up to do!!



I have just had my birthday, which was on 19th September. All the teachers gave me a huge card that they had all signed, and I bought a big cake to share with them all after school had finished. I got lots of nice greetings, cards and presents from individual members of staff…and had a lovely day. Even my secretary bought me another cake for me to take home and share with my husband and Lydia and Grace! I have included photos of the two cakes (the bright yellow one was from my secretary)


I imagine that you are all well settled into school. I hope that you had a great summer holiday. I hear that Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Cooper have swapped classes, and that there are two reception classes now! In our school our oldest children are in the reception class. Our youngest pupil is Chike and he is 8 months old!! I will include some photos of the children in my next blog.

That’s about all for now. I hope that we can set up an email link between our two schools, so that you can communicate with each other. That should be great fun!!

Take care
Lots of love from Mrs. Sanchez xxx

Only one more week to go!

I am so sorry not to have written for so long! The excuse is that I have not been well at all. Unfortunately, I seem to have had a very severe form of food poisoning which has taken 3 weeks to right itself, and has left me feeling very weak!

However, I am now well on the mend, and actually managed a long walk in the bush yesterday, with a lot of other people. It was really quite pleasant, and not too hot! We all met up afterwards a t an outside restaurant where we had a great buffet and drinks. (Hopefully, I will not contract another bout of what I had earlier!)

I only have one more week to go before my school closes for the summer. I thought I would bring you up to date with some of the things that have been happening there since I last wrote to you. We have had three more birthdays, two children were 4 years old, and the other little girl was 1. We had parties for them all in the school hall, with cake and candles and party bags! What fun!



On May 27th it was Children’s Day. Some of the schools in Nigeria close for the day, but we decided to stay open, and have our own celebrations together. We invited parents into school, where the children showed them what they had done in school ( A bit like your family assemblies) The children were all invited to wear traditional dress and they looked really cute as you can see from some of the photos! Unfortunately, all of the children were rather dumb-struck, which meant that the teachers and I did most of the work! We started with our school song (which I have written) and then went on to a demo of our Action Kids warm up ( very like Activate) that we all do together each morning. I spoke a little about the Children’s Day Flag and then each class took a turn at showing the parents what they had done in the term. We then ended with inviting all the parents to join in the circle to sing and do the actions to the school song. The parents really loved it, and it didn’t seem to matter to them that the children had been rather quiet!!


We are very excited at school, as we have nearly 70 children enrolled for September! We have had to make another class for the 18 month – 2 year olds. We still have some spaces at the top end of the school, but are delighted that the school is such a success!


I will be teaching the oldest class (Dinosaur) in September. These children will be the same age as your reception class.

I hope that you like the photos of some of our pupils!

I will be coming in to see you all as soon as I return. So, until then, take care, have fun and be good!

Lots of love , Mrs. Sanchez xxx

Questions, questions, and a new chief!

Thank you so much, class 2, for all your questions! I am very sorry to have taken so long to reply, but I really have been very busy, and not just with school!!

Last weekend, we went to a ceremony where a friend of ours was made a chief! She had been working in a different part of Nigeria, helping with the health system there. She was retiring, and to say thank you for all the hard work she had done, she was to be granted the title of Chief of Udi Kingdom. We were guests of honour at the celebrations, which lasted for about six hours!! It was the first time that the title had been granted to a woman, so it was a great honour for her.




Next weekend, we have been invited to another typical African ceremony….a naming ceremony, which is like a Christening, but is the traditional African part. We have to wear traditional African clothing, so we have had to be measured for some special clothes that are being made up. My husband and I are both going in costumes made out of the same cloth…so we’ll take some photos to show you!


Now to answer your questions!!
Sophie, there are going to be about 60 children in our school. At the moment we have about 30, but a lot more have registered to start in September.

Megan, we have got a staff room. It’s quite small and has two tables in and a computer. The teachers only have 20 minutes break through the day, so no-one sits down for long! Our staff meetings are held in my office (which is bigger than the one in your school)

Lauren, we have 4 classrooms in the main building, and a crèche for the babies in a separate building. We also have a computer room, a library, a playroom, a hall, a kitchen and a parents waiting room.

Libby, there are 17 girls so far in our school!

The children eat hot cooked meals at lunchtime. We have our own cook, who cooks lovely things like pasta and pizza and sausages and fish. The children enjoy the meals a lot!! They also have afternoon snacks because some stay until 5.30pm

Joel, we only have 1 headteacher…that’s me!

Megan and Lauren,we do have a sort of playtime after lunch at about 12.30, when most of the older children go outside (some of the younger ones have a sleep then!) The children do play outside as much as possible. We even have swimming and paddling sessions on a Friday, when all the children go out and have a splash around! The children are very lucky and have a lot of toys to play with.

Daisy, I’m glad that you enjoyed the country dancing! Did you go to the church to see the flowers?

Olivia, our shared area is set up as a playroom that all the classes share (except for the babies)

Ebony and Megan, your mystery box sounds wonderful! We have a dinosaur and a pony to take home and write their diaries (a bit like Baby Bear.) We also have mystery bags that we put things in and have to feel and describe.

Ethan, yes, we have lots of balls of different sizes. Some of the little ones are proving to be excellent footballers. Our youngest star is Amjad who is just two, and can kick a ball further than I can!!

Hello Tom, are you still there? Did you come for work experience??

Mrs. Peart, I’m glad that you had a great time in the Dominican Republic. Can’t wait to see the photos!!

It was lovely to see you all at Easter. I am coming back at the end of June, so I’ll come in to see you all then.

Lots of love,
Mrs. Sanchez xxxx

Happy Easter and New Beginnings

Well here I am again, back in Nigeria! It was lovely to see you all just before Easter and I hope that you are enjoying your Easter break.

Wasn’t the snow amazing on Easter Day? My two daughters were staying with us and we all rushed out to build a snow family in the field next to our holiday cottage! I’ve put my favourite photo of my daughters in the blog. The one closest to the camera is Rachel and the other one is Becky. It just shows that you are never too old to play in the snow!


We had two weeks in England and then travelled back here as I had to continue to help set up my new school. We are now all ready to start….well, apart from the fact that we have no children yet! We open our doors tomorrow, and we have had a lot of mums and dads looking round and taking school brochures and admission forms away with them…we are just hoping that there will be lots starting!


One of the little boys due to start on Monday is called Zack, and it is a really special day for him, because it is his third birthday on our opening day! We’ve made him a birthday crown and are planning to get some balloons and sing Happy Birthday to him!

Today is really hot…over 40 degrees C!! We really need the rains to start as the temperature is climbing so high! The heat brings out the flame trees, and the photo is of a beautiful one in the gardens of our apartment. They are really wonderful, but sadly the flowers don’t last too long. Can you see the huge seed pods hanging down?


I hope that you all enjoy this next term…with exciting things like the Flower festival and sports day to look forward to. Are any of your classes going on any trips?

Do remember to write to me on the blog…don’t leave it all for Mrs. Peart and Mrs.Cox to do!!

Have fun, be good and learn lots!!

Love from Mrs.Sanchez xxxx

Looking forward to Easter!

Hello all once again!

This is going to be my last blog until we return again after Easter. We are flying back next Saturday for two weeks, and we can’t wait! I am planning to come in to see you all, hopefully before the Easter weekend and would love to hear about what fun you’ve had since Christmas. Mrs Ellerby told me that you have just had a Book Week, where you were all dressed up as animals! I imagine you enjoyed it almost as much as Mrs. Cox!


I’ve been very bust here, training my new staff for nearly two weeks! I’m including a photo of the teaching staff for you to see. The front row are the four teachers and the others are mainly teaching assistants and nannies (we are taking babies from 6 months old) The secretary is on the far left at the back and the director is at the far right. They are a really nice lot and we’ve had some fun over the past two weeks! I’ve taught them lots of our songs and rhymes (like speckled frogs, wheels on the bus and Marching through the jungle) and they’ve taught me some Nigerian versions of other songs!


The weather here is really hotting up! It is just about the end of the Harmattan, and the temperature is now rising to 40degrees through the day, only dropping to about 28 degrees at night…so we are very glad of the air-conditioning!

I would still love to hear from any of you through the blog. I’m sure any of the teachers will remind you how to do this, but anyway, I shall see you all very soon! Grace sends her love to you all, she has got a three week break from school but tends to prefer term time as she gets to see more of her friends then!

Looking forward to seeing you soon
Lots of love,
Mrs Sanchez xxx

More African Music

Hello all of you! I hope that you enjoyed your holidays, and are now on the count-down to Easter!
I want to tell you a little bit about a wonderful concert that I went to last Friday. It was held in the Hilton hotel and was by a singer from Ivory Coast, another West African country. She sang really powerfully and also danced and also played instruments!! She was truly talented and I was spell-bound by her! I bought her CD and want to leave a copy of it in school, as it reminded me a lot of our African fortnight last year!


I am really busy preparing for the opening of my new school. Tomorrow I start to train the staff in the new curriculum, and we have two weeks of sorting out and discussions to have. We also start enrolling next week, so hopefully we will have lots of pupils to open with after Easter. All the teachers are Nigerian, except for one who is Indian. We have 9 staff who are teachers (we still need three more to look after the babies in the crèche) as well as a cook, cleaners, secretary, guards and gardeners. I am very excited, but also a little nervous, as I am really in charge now!! The school building is now being painted, and hopefully the furniture and equipment will start arriving next week, so that we can make it look more like a school for those parents wanting to look around it! I will include some photos of the staff and school next time, when I have managed to get them all together for a photo-shoot!


The weather is still very dry and dusty. We have had two sunny days over the weekend, but it has been very overcast with dust through the week. The temperature s also climbing, approaching 40 degrees C, so things are starting to get a bit uncomfortable!

Hope you are getting on well at school. I think that your website is wonderful! I have included a flier from my school which has the website on. I hope that we will get some photos of the building and the children onto it very soon.

More news next time. Hope that you find time to reply to my blog this time…I’d love to hear from you!
Take care, lots of love,
Mrs. Sanchez xxx

Money, money, money

Hello all,

I can’t believe we’re into February already! It doesn’t seem a moment since we were eating our Christmas dinner!!
Thank you Class two and Mrs Peart for your comments on the blog.It is so good to get post from Holton le Clay. I think that your web-site is brilliant! My new school has got a website, but we are still adding to it. If you are interested it is www.cradletocrayonschool.com. It sounds as if you are having great fun at school. I remember the 1960’s very well and also the man landing on the moon. It sent shivers down my spine when we saw the pictures on the TV; we just didn’t think that it was possible!! Glad you liked the photo of Mrs Cox and I…we had great fun, and the costumes kept us nice and snug!!

To answer some of your questions about Grace. She goes to school from Monday to Friday, but school starts at 8 o’clock, and finishes at 2pm. She finishes earlier on a Friday. I book some lovely books for Grace…A big collection of Mog stories, a selection of Percy the park keeper books, and a large book about different countries with a blow- up globe.

I thought that I would show you some of the money that we have in Nigeria. The currency is Naira, and there are about 250 Naira to £1. There are mainly notes, in 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 1000 (there may be more but these are all I’ve seen) There are also some coins 2naira, 1 naira and 50 kobo (there are 100 kobo to a naira) . The whole money system is very strange, as you cannot change money at the banks, and you are advised not to use your credit cards. So you carry large piles of notes around with you, which is rather unnerving, but there is no other way that you can pay for shopping or meals out. You have to make sure that you take enough money with you, as you cannot simply use your card, like we all do back home!

I thought you might like to see some of the notes. I have managed to find some new notes, as most of the money is very dirty (due to the dust and constant handling) and you always make a point of washing your hands if you’ve had to count out any money!!




The coins are quite pretty, and remind me of the £1 and £2 coin…but bear in mind that they are worth less than one penny! (Actually, you only ever see these in change at shops sometimes).The notes have interesting pictures on one side, and on the other are famous Nigerian people. The streets in Abuja are named after these people. The picture on the 1000naira note is of Zuma Rock, which is the other big rock like Aso rock that I can see from my window. It is on the other side of Abuja. Also there are pictures of the cattle, and people.

I am including some photos of my school. As you can see, it still needs a lot of repairs doing to it, and it needs painting inside and out. Then we need to put all the furniture and equipment into the rooms and make it look welcoming! I am going to teach the 4-5 year olds and I am also the head, so I will be kept very busy. I will start at 7.30am so will have to make sure I get up really early! I’ll let you know more about this as the school grows.


I hope that you all have a lovely half term holiday…the weather certainly looks quite nice for you at the moment! Don’t forget to reply to the blog if you have time…..you can maybe ask your mum or dad if they can help you at home?

Lots of love to you all,
Mrs Sanchez

Trip to Crocodile Town!

I thought that I would tell you all a little about a trip I made last Thursday and Friday. My husband had to go to Kaduna ( a city about 2 hours north of Abuja) for some meetings, and I decided to go with him, as it was a good way of getting to see more of Nigeria. We were driven up by Jude, and it was interesting to see the scenery out of the windows. The land was basically very flat, but with huge rock outcrops to either side of us. We passed Zumo rock, which is even bigger than Aso rock (the one I can see from my apartment ). We also passed many settlements which were built of mud bricks and grass roofs ..yes I have finally seen these traditional African huts!!

We stayed in a hotel overnight, and in the morning, while my husband went to his meetings, I had a tour of the city. It was really interesting, as the man, Tayo, decided to show me the different areas and the different people that make up the city.

We started our tour down by the river, in a small park. He explained that the word Kaduna means crocodiles in the Hausa language! I was rather nervous as I walked on the river bank, until he told me that there were now no more crocodiles in that part of the river as they had been caught and eaten by the local people! I did see three crocodiles in an enclosure within the park, and also some ostriches and giant tortoises.


We then drove around some of the areas leading out of the city, and Tayo explained that the city was divided into a Christian and a Muslim section, with the river being the dividing line. It was fascinating to drive through these communities, and we were always greeted with a smile and a wave.

We then left the made roads and travelled down dust tracks to see some of the more rural villages. Tayo knew a lot about the history of these, and was a fascinating guide. Each village was made up of a number of compounds. These were owned by families…sometimes three or four generations all living together with their goats and hens in a walled compound, containing a variety of huts made from mud bricks. Tayo said that this was a very strong building material. His father still lived in the family hut, which had been built over forty years ago!

The tour ended in the area where all the government employees and military chiefs lived….quite a difference, as these were huge buildings, surrounded with high walls and large steel gates.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get an opportunity to take photos, as I felt that I did not want to intrude on the lives of these people, but I do promise that I will take a photo of a traditional African hut soon!

I am starting my new teaching job tomorrow, and have a whole week of meetings with the school’s owner, and also meet the other staff. I am really looking forward to this, and will let you know more about the school on the next blog.

Take care all of you, don’t forget to keep blogging!

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa visited your house! He certainly had a job to find me….but managed thankfully! It was lovely to see you all at school before the holidays, and I really enjoyed your singing and acting in It’s a Baby! I felt that Christmas had really started for me! I had a great time going with Music Club to Hotel Elizabeth to entertain the ladies there! I thought that you were all very professional and behaved very well!

We spent 3 weeks in the UK, visiting friends and family and also shopping for a lot of things that we can’t get out here! I also filled a suitcase with books, CDs and games for my new school. I found it very hard to choose what to buy, and I could have filled 20 cases, not just one! There are no nice, colourful toys and books for school use out here, and we are getting a lot of things sent both from America and England.

I am very busy at the moment planning for the new school. I will start to train the teachers on 21st January and the school is planning to be open from the 4th February. A lot of things have to be done before then!!

The Harmattan is very thick at the moment (do you remember, that is the dust that blows down from the Sahara Desert?) It means that some days you have to keep the lights on all day, and you don’t see the sun. However, it is still warm..which is very strange!!

Can I say a very big THANK YOU to all the staff who collected money to buy books and craft things for Grace? I spent half of the money on books, art and craft resources, and decided that I would give these to her a few at a time, so as not to overwhelm her. Her face was a picture!! She had tears rolling down her cheeks, and could not believe that they were all for her! I plan to give her an item each week until we return at Easter, when I will spend the other half of the money.

I hope that you are enjoying being back at school after such a long holiday! I thought that you had all worked really hard on the displays. I really liked the textile display in the entrance corridor, and your trees in the main hall. Keep working hard, and don’t forget to reply to my blogs! I’ll try to put more photos on next time, but hope that you like this one of Scooby and Sylvester as they celebrated New Year!


Lots of love to you all,
Mrs. Sanchez