This month the Class 10 students, aged 16+, sit their external Matriculation Examinations before leaving school. The results will be available in March when the students make final choices on further education or work opportunities.

The students are working very hard as they are all striving for good examination results.

Students enjoyed making musical instruments with music volunteer Will Embliss from KINSHIP, UK, this summer.

Will made instruments out of spare construction wood and taught the students how to play them. On the day of the Plant Nursery Inauguration guests also enjoyed the xylophone. Will also made instruments from metal tubes and old oil drums.

Work in the adventure playground with St Christopher School

This week we have had the benefit of several pupils from St Christopher school in Hertfordshire who helped in the playground for two days. St Christopher School children assisted Arlene, Tsetan and Paddy with the task of backfilling the irrigation trenches in this area. We were also able to start to paint the internal walls with whitewash.

Upper level of treehouse completed

Arlene Decker (landscape volunteer) inspecting an irrigation system manhole

Construction this week has simply involved 'mending' with a small amount of construction in the form of building the manholes for the valves for the irrigation system. I was very pleased about the manholes given the exposed nature of the valves to children and to the sand/soil gradually falling into the trenches and covering the mechanism. We have not lost anymore plants this week. The trees and plants that have 'taken' continue to develop and flourish in the harsh climate and the housemothers are watering which is helping hugely. We are looking for local plants to cultivate on site.

Wild Aquilegia photographed at Chilling

Breaking through the tree pits for introduction of drip line in the classroom courtyards

This week has once again been primarily focussed on irrigation installation. The masons and labourers have worked hard at breaking through steps and tree pits and digging metres and metres of trenching through the many inaccessible areas (to the JCB) by hand. Some of the work has been gruelling during a very hot week! We are now backfilling the larger trenches with the JCB and also still hand trenching where necessary. The hand trenching has been a very slow process. The vegetables are looking very good and are coming to fruition. The plants in the nursery in particular are beginning to really develop and the fruit trees are also dong incredibly well. The end of the week saw the final judging of the garden competition. Infants, Juniors and Seniors were presented with their awards for the best gardens.

Nursery vegetables with irrigation laterals in place

Senior winning planting scheme

Irrigation trenching along the Spine

This week saw the continuation of trenching for the irrigation and the first pipes being laid. We have been discussing looking further at the flora in the hills directly around the school and the possibility of removing some plants and seeing whether they will transplant successfully during these summer months.

The laying of the first mainline pipes for the irrigation system

Roof detail of roundhouse in the adventure playground

This week the handover began of the Resident Landscape Architect role from Simon Drury-Brown to Paddy Clarke, who will be on site until the end of September. The roundhouse structure is complete providing some much needed shade on site and wonderfully cooling airflow through the structure.

This week several irrigation engineers from Jains arrived on site. We walked the site and marked out the route of the mainline for trenching to begin. Trenching started immediately with Lundup on the JCB. We are all incredibly keen to see the laying of irrigation pipes start!

Initial trenching for irrigation in front of Naropa Photang

Adventure Playground 'Roundhouse' going up

We built the frame of the timber roundhouse in the adventure playground, which is looking beautiful. After asking for the housemothers assistance this week they came to help us begin planting flower seedlings on the spine.

Planting on the residential spine

His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa was invited by His Eminence Thuksey Rinpoche, Chairperson of the Druk Padma Karpo School, to inaugurate the "Dragon Garden", and to watch a series of performances by the school children and a presentation by the landscape architects from UK.

Three years ago this month, a big mudslide hit our school in the night and did a huge amount of damage. Nobody was killed on the campus, but more than 200 people lost their lives nearby in the Indus Valley. School staff saved our residential students and led them to safety on adjacent high ground. Villagers' fields were left covered in mud, boulders and debris, dramatically affecting their livelihoods.

The school buildings took a direct hit, but top-class design and good construction enabled them to withstand the large forces. The mud made a terrible mess inside buildings, and carried away books, furniture and equipment.