A Day in a Blue T-shirt

For some of our students, travelling away from home for the first time, possibly halfway around the world, a summer school in England, learning a language that might not be too familiar to them can be a difficult and challenging time. Here at Discovery Summer Uppingham we have an army of young men and women dressed in BLUE who are here especially to make our international students feel welcome and to set a positive, enthusiastic example of how to go about learning English in a FUN, SAFE manner.

This is our army of STUDENT HOSTS and Zuleikah, Roberta and Victoria have kept a photo diary over the last 24 hours so that you can have a peek into their world...

We wake up before the other students, at around 0715 so that we can wash and get ready for the day. At breakfast we have our first register of the day and try to split up so we can chat with the other girls before we have to go to lessons. We have to make sure we have our lanyards, ID cards and water bottles just like all the other students before we walk down the road to the classrooms.

Our timetable is pretty much the same as the other students. As well as the English and Academic Course lessons there are lots of Workshops and Activities throughout the morning and afternoon.

We help out in the classes by talking with the students and helping them with the work, though sometimes the teachers ask us to do special tasks like collecting the rubbish, so that our international students can focus on their work.

We help them with reading, writing and vocabulary. it can be tricky at times but most of the time it is fun!

At break time we help out with the tuckshop and sometimes we organise games like 'splat' with the international students. It is a good way to get to know them and have fun too.

Sometimes we help the students prepare for the Trinity exams. We sit with them one to one, and hold conversations with them, correcting their grammer and pronunciation.

After lessons have finished and there are no more lessons or workshops, we go back to our houses to have dinner. After dinner, each night we have a different activity. Last night it was 'Uppingham's got Talent' where some of our students performed brilliant songs and dances. On other nights we have Disco's, game shows, murder mysteries and films. And sometimes we get an hour or so to chill out and chat with the international students in our houses.

Finally after the evening activity, we head back to the house, where there is a mad rush for the showers so that we can get into our nice warm beds as fast as we can, so that we can go to sleep.... or at least that is what our supervisers think!!!