REMEMBER your ABCs in school? They were usually accompanied by pictures of fruits.
But, for the 30-plus children of the Volvo Ocean Race school, learning the alphabet resembles a geography lesson as the classroom itself shifts from Alicante, Spain, to Cape Town, South Africa, before being transported to Singapore.
The sounds of laughter and howls of delight bouncing off the classroom walls come from children of 11 different nationalities, mirroring the international diversity of the race.
Established in the previous edition of the race by Bryony Kent and Belinda Braidwood, wife of Green Dragon's trimmer Tom, the school has since witnessed a four-fold increase in enrolment.
The 28-year-old Kent, ably assisted by six helpers, is now the only qualified teacher after Braidwood left.
In multi-purpose rooms above the Sentosa Cove carpark, the children, aged four to 13, are divided into two groups - those below eight in one classroom and the older set in the adjoining room.
'School is really fun, we get to play games and listen to stories. And we love travelling too,' Anna, six, and Lucy, seven, daughters of Ericsson 4's watch captain Stuart Bannatyne, chimed in unison.
'These kids are tremendous, they're so adaptable,' says the bubbly Kent during the children's break.
'It's hard moving around, following their dad from port to port. But it's the only life they know and they adjust so quickly.'
The school will follow the sailors to Qingdao, China, and later to Boston, Galway and Stockholm. It will skip the stops in Rio de Janeiro and St Petersburg.
For head teacher Kent, it has been a logistical nightmare as she coordinates the packing and setting up of the school in each city.
But such sacrifices are necessary she says, pointing at the graffiti on the walls, pinned maps and drawings, as the room must resemble a classroom for the children to take their lessons seriously.
Most of the kids attend regular schools in their home countries during the breaks between race legs and bring their assigned work with them on their travels.
The challenge for Kent is to find a programme that is both relevant and interesting for her students.
'What works for a four-year-old Spanish girl will probably not work for a 13-year-old American boy,' she explains.
Taking advantage of the school's nomadic nature, classroom projects unique to each stopover have been devised.
In Alicante, the kids learnt about Pablo Picasso and focused on art drawings. In Cape Town, the theme was history and apartheid.
The stopover in Singapore has led to an exploration of the different religions here, with particular emphasis on Hinduism as the school skipped the previous leg in Kochi, India.
Tory, 12, daughter of Puma's skipper Ken Read, sums up the school's appeal: 'It's a great opportunity to meet other kids like myself, whose fathers are racing round the world.
'The teachers are very helpful with our schoolwork and we learn interesting things about each new city, which is really cool.'
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