Beehive School Currently

Learn about how Beehive School is working today. This section talks about the school's outstanding curriculum, how well the students are doing, the unique diversity of the school, and tuition costs.

Beehive Schools uses international level pupil-centered curriculum and follows UK/US lines of education to help halt the increasing deterioration in standards in the government and private schools in Malawi.

Education of the whole child is encouraged, with activities and topics that are relevant and interesting. Social, moral, spiritual, and physical development will be fostered, as well as a strong focus on literacy, numeracy and science.

Creativity
Beehive School encourages children to be creative. They draw, paint, perform, and do creative writing. One class even got to write and star in their own plays. Creativity is hugely lacking in other schools in the country.

School Trips
Beehive School takes field trips to local industries. So far they have learned about coffee at Polly's Coffee Shop, visited the water board dam and have seen dinosaur fossils at Karonga Museum. Beehive school also took trips to Lake Malawi, the Mzuzu airport, Kawalazi tea plantation and Baker's Pride bakery.

Parental Involvement
Beehive School encourages parents to be part of the child's education. It has an active PTA that meets regularly and is involved in school decisions, including homework policies. Reports track student's performance, and teacher-parent interviews keep parents up to date with their child's progress. Open days let parents come and see their child's work and meet other parents and students.
Results

As The Beehive School currently only teaches up to Standard 5, the students have not taken any written exams yet, so there are no 'official' results. Even so, it is obvious that there are differences between Beehive School students and other children in the area. Beehive students have EXCELLENT English - spoken, read and written. They are self motivated and enthusiastic and polite. They can argue, question and hypothesize. They interact well with all ages/colors/races/languages. When the school gets children entering from other schools, they are usually at least two to three years behind Beehive students in terms of language, understanding what is expected of them, behavior, and academic ability.

Diversity
Something that is obvious to any first time visitor to Beehive School is that it is very diverse. This environment helps promote tolerance, understanding, acceptance, and learning of different cultures. It is implicit throughout the school that prejudice will NOT be tolerated – by anyone and anything.

This is the breakdown of the school currently:
160 children:
1 Indian
1 Taiwanese
2 Pakistani
2 Americans
2 mixed Chinese/Indian
3 mixed Euro/African
4 Europeans
37 Malawian Indian (mixed origins e.g. Pakistan, Iran, India, Bangladesh, but born in Malawi for some generations)
112 African (Majority Malawian but some Tanzanian, Zambian, Mozambiqueans, Zimbabweans)

The school has 6 full-time teachers who come from 5 different countries. Read more about the teachers

Tuition
Tuition is $70 per term (10,000 Kwacha) for 3 terms a year, plus an optional summer term. Although $70 may sound like a large sum of money, it is humble compared to the fees charged by other private schools in the country that are above 300,000 Kwacha. The tuition money is spent on teacher's salaries, rent for the school property, school supplies and expanding the school. Currently, there are 3 children on reduced tuition, and Niall hopes to give financial aid to children who cannot afford the fees.