SCHOOL EXCHANGE

THE ROYAL SCHOOL HASLEMERE – MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN SCHOOL

JUNE- JULY 2011

After a group of six girls with their teachers Mrs Boothy-Joost and Mrs Wood from the Royal School in Haslemere had visited our school in April 2011 nine girls from year 9 flew to London in June to pay a return visit. While some of the girls stayed with the families of their pals, some stayed in the boarding house. Boarding was a really new experience for all of them. Here is what they found out:

Boarding in the Royal School

In the boarding school there were only girls. We stayed in the sixth-form boarding house (QE II) for six days.
On the first day we had classes and we found a lot of differences. For example we had to run to our different lessons, because every subject (e.g. Sciences, languages, music...) has its own house and every teacher his or her own room. Schools starts at 8.30 a.m. and ends at 2.00 p.m., and there is one big break for lunch, afterwards students have extracurricular activities. 

Some students come to school every morning, some are taken by their parents, others by the school bus and some stay in the boarding school in two different houses. Boarders get a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are all kinds of fruit, and there is a salad for very meal.

Students in the Royal School wear uniforms even in sports. Students sometimes coach themselves, they also do projects and study for themselves.
Teachers only teach in their lessons. They also have a big library where you can go any time even after school when you want to find out something for your homework or to prepare a project.

In the last week of the term students have projects like giving presentations, PE and drama classes.
They get an assignment in the morning and then they have to work on that all day. Here students teach each other, teachers aren´t teaching.

(Rossana Maria Kupperian und Stacy Leah Schlesinger 9e)

The group took a lot of trips, some with and some without the English girls. On Saturday we all went to Portsmouth at the south coast where we visisted the Spinnaker Tower and the hisotric dockyard with the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flaship. On Monday a bus took us to Stonehenge the famous stone circle near Salisbury where we visited the cathedral with the Magna Charta. On sunday the girls did different things with their families. Here are two reports about the first trip to Arundel Castle and the last one to London.

On the first day of our exchange on Friday, July 1st we went to Arundel Castle and to Chichester. First we went through the park of Arundel to the castle itself. In the castle there were lots of pictures of old Earls and Dukes, really colourful ceilings and coats of arms of the Howard family on the walls. There was also an impressing library with thousands of old books.

From the tower you could see the surrounding country. We then walked through the impressing gardens with so many different plants that you couldn't count them. After that we went to the city of Chichester with many nice shops and coffee houses. We all met again at the big cross which stands at the crossing of four streets and which was easy to find.

(Kristina Scheuplein, 9d)

On Tuesday, July 5^th we were in London. We took the train to Waterloo station which is really huge. Coming from the station we crossed the Jubilee Bridge from where we could see the London Eye and Big Ben and many other important buildings like St Paul's Cathedral. We then walked to Buckingham Palace where we watched the Changing of the Guards. There were thousands of people who all wanted to see the guards. They marched down the Mall in red and black uniforms.

After that we made a break in St James Park which is near Buckingham Palace. We also made a short stop in the National Gallery where we looked at some pictures from English artists. Finally we stopped in Covent Garden where we could go shopping. On the way back to Waterloo station it started to rain, but all in all we had a great day.

(Kathi Ernst, 9f)

Supervising Teacher: Claudia Freese 07.11