Week One in Ko Lanta

Our first week of the Global Classroom Project has been all about settling in, finding our rhythm as a group, connecting with the island, and beginning to see how learning can grow directly from the place we’re in.

Each morning has started quietly, with yoga and reflection under the trees before the day warms up. We’ve learned our first words of Thai with Ying, who has a wonderful way of turning simple phrases into windows on Thai life. Early in the week we visited the local market, practising some new vocabulary as we navigated the noise, colour, and kindness of the vendors. Later in the week, we explored local sites and began collecting our first data sets, the start of what will become larger projects in Environmental Systems & Societies and Mathematics. This stage is about building context, gathering observations, questions, and data that will fuel the deeper academic work ahead. Our program is student-built: the learners’ own discoveries form the foundation for everything that follows.

As the term unfolds, those first sketches, samples, and field notes will develop into structured investigations across our six learning pathways, from politics and ecology to mathematics, languages, and the arts. The academic depth is there, but it grows from genuine curiosity rather than being imposed from the top down.

Learning with the Island

A central principle of the Global Classroom Project is to work with local people, not simply study around them. Our Thai teachers, guides, and community partners are the experts here. They help us see connections between culture, environment, and daily life that no textbook could replicate. Education becomes an exchange, a relationship rather than a curriculum. That’s what makes our project different from many worldschooling hubs or pop-up programs. We’re educators ourselves, and the Global Classroom Project is built to combine meaningful academic learning with the freedom and authenticity of real-world experience.

Next week we’ll head deeper into our studies of Human Footprints in the Sea, learning about ocean ecology, local fishing practices, and the ways humans leave their mark on marine life. We’ll be working deeper with our amazing marine biologist Ava, collecting data both above and below the surface.

And as the project itself evolves, we’re continuing to look forward. On our website you can already see early plans for next year, when we’ll run two Global Classroom Projects simultaneously each term. We’re also developing a younger cohort, with hopes to launch in Hoi An later this year, and exploring a summer project in St Lucia focused specifically on younger learners and families.

You can follow our weekly photo and video updates from Ko Lanta on our Facebook and Instagram pages. They offer a glimpse into what learning looks like when the classroom walls disappear, where science, art, and culture all meet on the shoreline.

This first week has reminded us that education doesn’t have to start with textbooks or timetables. It can start with a question, a pattern in the sand, or a conversation in a new language, and from there, the learning grows naturally.