Buckswood International Summer Camp - chance for future
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, July 14
“The Buckswood summer camp changed my life, it gave me a chance to get to know with many new friends and gifted twenty unforgettable days,” one of the students of the Buckswood summer camp told me nearly in tears a day before her leaving the camp.
Up to two hundred students ,who competed in various Olympiads announced by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia, gather at Buckswood International School-Tbilisi, located in Tskneti, annually in summer for to get their award - twenty fantastic days in the Summer School Camp and an unique chance of leaving for the United Kingdom.
There are three streams of students and twelve of them, those who perform the best, go to the United Kingdom.
Children live in dormitories at Buckswood and belong to different houses. This year the houses are named after the characters of the famous TV series, Game of Thrones.
It can be said that the school is distinguished with its unique mixture of quality education and fun and this is thought to be the major reason why children do not wish to leave the camp.
Each day starts with a room inspection when one of the teachers inspects the dormitories and in the morning, in the course of the morning assembly, names the best dorm. The dorm gets house points, for it then motivates other dorms to do the same.
I believe that the inspection aims at forming or refining self-discipline and tidiness in students.
After breakfast, the camp has an assembly that might be taken as one of the most attractive parts of the day, as different houses set their own performances on display. Here are humorous sketches, songs and dances that are followed by a teacher’s motivating speech and the daily schedule.
In the course of the day, after lessons conducted in the English language which lasts for three hours and cover different aspects of life and British history, students are engaged with various sporting activities starting from football competitions to cricket and some others games they will not have tried before. Winners in the competitions also get house points and the chance to be the best in the camp.
In order to reveal and develop students' creativity, the school invents and operates various tasks and challenges; children draw their house posters, stage plays, take part in poetry nights and amazing dance competitions.
It was really thrilling when different houses staged their own versions of Romeo and Juliet, or when they performed for the tango competition.
Apart from the competitions, students also take part in a Spelling Bee contest, create their projects and make presentations.
Each Friday children are taken on an excursion, where they will see a variety of interesting sites.
Thus it is really hard for the twenty days to be boring or tedious. Here are many possibilities to change in a positive way, to become better than you were before and spend a memorable time amongst new friends. The Buckswood staff work hard to offer the best mixture of high-level education and entertainment for an unforgettable experience.
I myself created a word to describe the situation there and called the camp time “ Buckshood” time, as this period, from my point of view, is one of the genuine parts of childhood, full of new impressions and great opportunities. In the new word, the B stands for a 'big family',as Boockswood is really one big family; the U stands for 'unique' as here is the unique mixture of quality education and fun and a chance to travel to the UK; the C stands for 'creative', as everything is being done in the school to reveal and develop creativity skills; the 'K' stands for kind, as kindness is encouraged there; the S, 'success', is the major aim is caring about the kids future success; H, for 'humane', respecting others rights and values are much appreciated; O, 'open-minded', school and the camp encourages such type of thinking; O, for 'organized', as there are various procedures serving the aim; and last but by no means least, the D that stands for 'democratic'. The last letter is somehow a crowning moment as it reflects the major idea of the school - developing democratic skills and democratic generation that will be the basement of the democratic state.
