There’s Entente Cordiale at Longhill!

Posted in: News Archive

Longhill students enjoyed an opportunity to make new friends and practice their language skills at the same time recently, when they played host to a group of 26 French students and their teachers. The visitors came from a school in north-western France called Collège les Garettes, which is in a small village, Villaines La Juhe, of just 3,000 inhabitants. Visiting Longhill was an interesting experience for the French students whose school has around 200 students and 20 teachers, which is roughly five times smaller than Longhill.

 

The students (aged 14) arrived in Portsmouth last Tuesday and have visited Winchester, Beaulieu, Windsor and Eton College.  They are staying with families in Portslade and Hove.  There were over 40 students visiting Brighton, half of whom went to visit Patcham High whilst the other half came to Longhill.  After their visit they were looking forward to visiting the Pavilion and the Lanes.

 

The students visited a number of lessons, particularly lessons they don’t have in France such as Childcare, Drama and Music; they also took part in a Year 7 French class and a PE lesson.  They then worked with Longhill students on an extensive questionnaire all about Longhill and life in an English school.  The winners were given prizes which were presented by Headteacher, Kate Williams.

 

“I really enjoyed the day,” said Year 9 student Laith Abbas, “It gave us an insight into a whole different culture and language in our own school.”  Faith Howard added, “It was a great experience and interesting to see how good our French was and how good their English was.”

 

The link with Collège les Garettes is a new one for Longhill, who are hoping to be able to organise a visit back to them in France next year. The aim of the collaboration is to set up Skype sessions with the school during language lessons to improve student pronunciation and increase engagement in languages, not to mention fostering good relationships with new-found friends.

 

 

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