We started school time at about 10am.
Prior to this, we would take our daily exercise, which for us was always going for a ride on horseback around and across the farm. We frequently stopped off in the strawberry plantations and had a good browse of strawberries (they are still my favourite fruit 50 years later)
PNEU stands for Parents National Educational Union. I think it was started by Charlotte Mason as a means of teaching children at the Primary School level in countries and places where there was no English schooling.
It was a marvellous institution, and they would send out a curriculum for us to follow and the books we needed (if we did not already have them). I remember the subject called Picture Study. We would be sent pictures of famous paintings and a description of the paintings and the artist who had painted them. Then to help us remember them we would have to describe them verbally and this would be written down and sent to the PNEU for marking.
I think Picture Study was the subject I remember so vividly, and it is the
subject I remember so vividly now in 2023 and it has helped me to recognise pictures and their artists. I think this was the best subject I remember.
However, we would only teach/or be taught through the Primary level and after that, we would have to go to England for the secondary level.
And how I hated that. Leaving the country, I was born in and called home.
I remember Our Island Story and Our Empire Story, And most importantly the books were brief but packed with knowledge. They would send out examination booklets which we would have read to us (or even reading them ourselves). We could tell the answers to our parents, and they would write down what we said and send it back to the PNEU headquarters for them to mark and give us a grade with comments.
I am quite sure my love of history and historical matters came and started from this teaching. My parents could teach us some French so we could read French stories as well.
I have used the P.N.E.U. to teach my own children in Ethiopia.
However, we would only teach (or be taught) through the Primary level and after that, we would have to go to England for the secondary level.
And how I hated that.