In School and Beyond

Winston in Costa Rica

The expedition to Costa Rica is underway, with students and staff arriving at their first hostel in the early hours of Monday morning.  They left very early on Sunday morning, flying to Dallas and then picking up a connecting flight to Costa Rica.

Mrs Jones and Mrs Alexander, along with Matt Sutherland, from Outlook Expeditions, are leading the trip.  This expedition involves working with the women of the La Luchita community cooperative, hiking, white water rafting and visits to national parks.

We wish them well.  I will keep you updated with information and hopefully some images if the leaders can access WiFi.

A Week in a British school

Guten Tag!

We’re Katharina and Laura the German students, who spend the week at ,,The Winston Churchill School”. During the week, we got a couple of experiences and were able to take a look into your school life. We learned about the differences between a German and a British school and in the following we want to show you our impressions. To compare it simple we’ll start to tell about our German school day.

The school we’re visiting is called ,,Bernstorff-Gymnasium Satrup” which is a grammar school in the north of Germany. Usually school starts at 07:45 am. The lessons are quite the same as yours, but a lesson takes just 45 minutes and not full 60 minutes. Besides we have to take all our equipment, books and exercise books to school and later back home again for homework, because the teachers don’t keep it. After every lesson we’ve got a small five minutes break in which we can change room, but it happens not really often, because in Germany the teachers are the ones who have to change from room to room. Each class has got his own room. After every second lesson there’s a 15 minutes break in which we can eat, go outside or just relax. It’s not usual to have a lunch break except you have a ten lessons day (end at 4 pm). A school day can take between five and ten lessons, which depends on the timetable. So during a week we can have schools out at 1 pm but the day after at 4 pm.

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7:45-8:30	Physics	-	Biology	Options	Maths
8:35-9:20	Maths	Physics	Business studies	Options	Maths
9:35-10:20	History	English	History	English	Options
10:25-11:10	French/Latin	Options	German	German	Business Studies
11:30-12:15	Music	German	German	French/Latin	Biology
12:20-13:00	English	Lunchbreak	Music	French/Latin	-
13:05-13:45		PE
13:45-14:30		PE
14:30-15:15		Chemistry
15:15-16:00		Chemistry

That’s our last timetable for example.

A German school is quite different from a British one, as you can see.

The most remarkable thing is definitely the uniform. We don’t have them in Germany. Everyone can wear what he wants. But in our opinion a uniform is something great, because it’s easier to feel as a part of the other’s. We don’t had to think about what we should wear or what the others might think about our styling. It’s also a good feeling to be dressed formal, because in Germany some of the students wear tracksuit bottoms and Flip-Flops, which is everything but not formal.

We also really liked the assembly in which students were honoured for special successes and also the big offer of sporting activities is great. We don’t have anything you could compare it with in our school.

But we also have to say that it’s a bit quieter and disciplined in a German school. German students are motivated to get good marks and learn a lot, because after every half year we get a report with our marks, which can sometimes be the reason why you have to redo a year again, if you were too bad. So for us it seems as the British teachers have to be stricter to make the students work well. On the other hand the students have an effect of being more self-confident in general view.

The week in a British school was a valuable experience we won’t forget. We want to thank you so much for this opportunity. A special thanks to the students who lead us around and the teachers we met. Everyone was very friendly and always helpful.

We wish you a successful future.

Auf Wiedersehen!