Dear Parents!
You made the dream possible. Now you can share these precious moments.
For a small flavour of what happened in Week 1, 2023 click on the video.
Enjoy! And thank you.
Claire, David & Team More Than English.
Take a ‘behind the scenes’ look at what our students did on Monday, which was Day 1, Week 1 of afternoon Specialisms.
Specialisms provide an opportunity for our teenagers to work with professional coaches to follow their passion or try something new. Improving their collaborative skills and learning to communicate across cultures, this week our students are using their English to:
Take a peak at Day 1 of our fast paced four-day Specialism projects. At the time of writing it is Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday, how far will they have progressed? We’ll find out!
It’s busy. It’s international. It’s inspirational and it’s ours for the day. More Than English co-director David Meddows used to be a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, so he was our guide for the day.
We got off the coach by the Ashmolean Museum and from there walked past Trinity College and under the Bridge of Sighs, named after the Ponte dei Sospiri in… where else (?) Venice.
Venice? So what do Venice and Oxford have in common? Well, while Venice’s waterways are on an altogether bigger and more dramatic scale, Oxford nevertheless has its own proud tradition of leisurely travel by waterway. In Venice they have the gondola. In Oxford, we have the punt.
Winding our way through the ancient back streets, we walked half-way across the compact city centre ‘soaking in the atmosphere’ of the university colleges (that together make up the University of Oxford) and arrived at Magdalen Bridge for a punt on the river. This activity is in the tradition of Oxford University students who take picnics on punts and reflect on notions of philosophy, art and science.
**Warning: this video contains scenes of a duck attack on our students!**
Crossing the road we immediately entered the vast campus and lands of Christchurch College, you know, the one whose dining room features in the Harry Potter movies.
From there a leisurely walk brought us to the Covered Market where students enjoyed looking around the boutique shops. Our final destination was inevitably the Westgate Shopping Centre which provided students with a well-earned opportunity for retail therapy and a chance simply to relax and spend time together conversing in their linguafranca: English.
A fantastic day: congratulations to all our students.
Important: no ducks were harmed in the making of this video.
Part of ‘feeling at home’ is having healthy and delicious food that makes you feel good.
Our team of chefs’ mantra is “locally sourced, globally inspired.” That means your children will try food from around the world including some British food.
On Sunday we enjoyed that most traditional of English dishes: the roast dinner including Yorkshire Pudding.
Can you imagine Mexican tachos without the heat of chillis? The British cannot imagine roast dinner without gravy: it’s the ‘sauce’ that contains all the flavour.
The same day we enjoyed English breakfast (eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, tomatoes and toast) with an English picnic for tea by the lake in the spectacular 20-hectare grounds of Moor Park.
Do you remember when your mother used to say ‘don’t eat too much now or you’ll spoil your dinner?’ Mother, of course, was right.
That’s why every day we also have ‘bitesize’ snacks at 1100am. Can you see the brownies in the photo? Deliciously ‘choclatey’ but with reduced sugar so everyone eats well at lunch.
To keep students ‘powered up’ during their busy day we also have snacks at afternoon break during Specialisms and something light to eat at supper.
We’ll be visiting the kitchen again very soon!
On the morning of the first full day, we asked students: “what are you going to learn” on summer school?”
Here’s what your children said:
The students told us how much they will miss their parents. They also told us that travelling independently without parents is an opportunity to gain self-confidence. We couldn’t agree more.
Our students understand that communicating with other teenagers from other cultures is a challenge, but also richly rewarding. While misundertandings can and will happen, gaining lifelong friends from the other side of the world is an opportunity not to be missed.
Brazilians are experiencing climate change in one way. French in quite another. The students commented on the rich possibilities to look at global issues from the perspective of other teenagers in different countries.
Developing language skills is of course important, but just as important as ‘how much English you know’ is ‘what you can do with the English you know.’ By exploring world issues and finding solutions to problems, our students will be developing their Critical Thinking Skills.
10 hours to create a dance show. One week to learn the language of speech making then research and deliver your own speech. 4 afternoons to make script, shoot and edit a film. Looking after each other in the residence. Working together to keep bedrooms tidy. Our students understand that ‘no man is an island’ and together we achieve more.
In their own towns and cities our students go to school with other teenagers they have known their whole lives. Here on summer school there is a golden opportunity for our students to redefine and expand their idea of who they are and who they want to be.
Any group of strangers who face a challenging new environment together become very close to each other as they travel that journey together. Being on summer school brings out the best in most teenagers helping them to develop their kinder more supportive side. Maybe the thought of speaking on stage in front of the whole school back home is terrifying. But here, with your new international friends who have joined you on the very same journey, suddenly you feel like you are with people who have ‘got your back’ and will support and applaud you to the very rafters.
Got a presentation to deliver in class tomorrow? No problem.
Naturally, all of this collaboration, thinking and doing will add up to rapid advances in English Language fluency. Very soon our students will be dreaming in English. But, if and only if, they apply everything that they told us on the first day.
Our students know what they have to do and what the benefits are. Together, we can make this summer a time of life changing moments. Thank you parents for giving us the opportunity to make this magic happen. You are superbeings too.
A huge thank you to ou incredible team. You never stopped smiling despite some huge airport delays.
What was our first impression? Delight, to see children from countries including Mexico, Spain, Italy, Romania, Brazil, France, Belgium and Czech Republic almost immediately using English to play board games as if they known each other for years.
Even after those long journeys, the children did not seem tired at all! So, they needed a short game of football to finish their arrival day.
Time to sleep zzzz. Good night everyone.
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