School and after school

Here in Seoul, there are lots of different schools, depending on whether you are here with the U.S. military or not. Off post, they have several international schools, including Seoul Foreign School, Dwight, and Yongsan International School (YISS).

Welcome to SAMS

If you are in the military, you can attend a DODEA school on post. They have an elementary, middle, and high school at Yongsan Army post. I go to the middle school (SAMS: Seoul American Middle School). The school is great (if you have a good attitude and work hard).

Every day, we raise the U.S. and Korean flags. I am in charge of raising the flags every B day (the school runs on a schedule of A and B days, different students having different classes every day).

There is no recess in middle school here, only a 30 min lunch break. You can eat outside and go play in the courtyard when you are done. Or you can eat inside and do the same thing. Since there is no recess, there is no playground. There is the courtyard though. 

My best friend playing four square.

The courtyard is a huge open space with a volleyball court, basketball hoops, and four square courts. Sometimes they unlock the high school football/soccer field and let us go up there (the first snow of the year is one of those days!).

The whole layout of the courtyard

The school itself is made up of a collection of buildings called huts.

One of the "huts" (a single building with two or more classrooms).

There are lots of afterschool clubs and sports (even one before school because the middle school starts at 8:45 (an hour after the elementary school). There is gardening, cross country, chess, chorus, homework, and more.  I am in the chess club. I would probably be in more afterschool clubs, but I have either soccer or piano on every week day after school except for Tuesday, when I have chess club.

My social studies classroom (basic hut classroom).

During school, there are lots of electives. Some of them include band, drama, P.E., and more! Seoul American Elementary School (SAES) has a gifted program called TAG, but SAMS doesn't (I guess because you can just take harder classes).

A huge picture of our mascot in the courtyard

Overall, I have loved the Seoul American schools on post (especially the middle school).  There are great teachers and extracurricular opportunities. I hope the schools I go to in other countries will be as good.