A Spanish school changed the classrooms for lessons on the beach: “It is safe and what they learn here, they do not forget”

Does school on the beach sound like a dream? After a year of distance learning and socially remote classrooms, a school in the Spanish region of Murcia does just that, trying to combine clean air and a new way of teaching.

Out of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente School, Masked children sit in front of a portable blackboard in well-spaced rows of green desks on the sandy shores of the Playa de los Nietos.

“Of course, the children have a lot of fun”, said the English teachers Juan Francisco Martínez. “What they learn here they don’t forget.”

Some barefoot studentss wiggling their toes in the sand playing xylophones, while others crouched over their notebooks to keep the breeze from blowing their papers into the sea.

The lessons are part of a larger project known as “Clean Air”, which aims to aim to create better air quality for children during the COVID-19 pandemic, even through outdoor learning.

The teachers begin to prepare the beach at 8 a.m. Eight classes participate in the 20-minute lessons and the groups rotate through the different zones.

The schoolchildren are between 3 and 12 years old and they stay in their class bubbles. So far, no cases of coronavirus have been reported.

“I like going to the beach!”, Antonio Fernández, 9, said. “I prefer to be on the beach because I feel more relaxed and at ease.”

Luz, 10, said: “(It’s) great because I’m with my friends, I’m at the beach. I like the beach. In the summer, I always come here to swim every day and I love the sand ”.

And it’s not just the beach setting. Members of a nearby neighborhood association brought Roman times to life by dressing up as soldiers, and local fishermen showed children their nets and explained where their dinner came from.

“The fishermen taught the students to fish and showed how they themselves could feed us during a pandemic”, said director Alfonso Vera.

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