Lots of pains 🥖🥖🥖

Bonjour tout le monde!

We are en route back to Sheldon after a wonderful week here in France. Our students have truly profité this week (had a whale of a time!). There were emotional farewells this 7am this morning between partners, hopefully the beginning of many longlasting friendships. We always believe that our students on the French exchange are a real credit to us at Sheldon, but even so we can't remember a year where things have gone quite so smoothly. Not a single midnight phone call, not a single souci. Un grand merci et bravo à nos excellents élèves !

Yesterday, our last day in France, we spent the day in a beautiful village at the edge of the Vendée region called Nieul-sur-Autise. Here we went to La Maison de la Meunerie for a breadmaking masterclass. All in French, we learnt about the ingredients and process used to produce le pain à l'ancienne, and were fascinated to discover that this mill has been making bread since 1728 and that the bread takes 17 hours to prove. Two hours later and we left with 22 gros pains (the bread, not the students).

In the afternoon we crossed the road to the village Abbaye, a very old Abbey and monastery dating to around the 11th century. Another tour en français and a workshop on colour (spot the trend). Our étudiants were encouraged to work on their painted enluminures (illuminations) as the monks would have done in the olden days - in silence. Finally, a bit of peace and quiet for us teachers!

Another fabulously sunny day, inbetween visits we enjoyed some downtime playing football and 'crutchball' (how far can you hit a tennis ball with Piers' crutches?!).

At time of writing we are yet to cross the channel; the roads are clear and the weather bright. As we travel north the rainclouds build and the traffic jams loom! But it's home sweet home! All being well, we will be home at 8pm.

À l'année prochaine!

Mrs Bowie, Miss Lang and Mr Spurdell

Le matin au collège

Coucou à tous!

Mercredi matin: a morning spent in our partner school, Collège Edouard Herriot.

On arrival, we were greeted in usual tradition with a brioche breakfast and a welcome from the Principal. He gave a very succinct and encouraging speech about the importance of l'amitié (friendship) between our students, not to mention our schools and our countries. And yes, he might have mentioned le Brexit...

Our students then spent a very formative morning in an authentic setting, sitting in on lessons and participating in a wide array of activities. Some sat in on maths, IT and sciences, whilst others experienced music lessons (singing in English!) or English (a treasure hunt to save the Queen's crown jewels!). We are always impressed both at how accommodating the French teachers are and at how well our students rise to the challenge.

On Wednesday afternoons there is no school in France so our étudiants disappeared off for more French fun in the sun at midday, leaving us with no option but to do the same.

We'll catch up with them tomorrow for a very exciting day of novelty: a bit of breadmaking followed by an illuminated manuscript workshop. All in French bien sûr!

A demain!

Futuroscope

Bonsoir!

Futuroscope, a theme park dedicated to the moving image, has been a firm favourite of the French exchange over the years and today was no exception. For those who had been before, they were thrilled to discover this year's nouveautés, such as a 4D cinema experience of flying through space and time (le voyage extraordinaire!). They also had la chance because the park was virtually empty and this meant no queues for rides.

For first timers, including our Year 8s and Mr Spurdell, the 'dance with the robots' ride went down a treat. As the name suggests, during this wild ride electro pop plays full volune whilst a giant robot hand throws you around and upside down at a maddening speed.

We had almost no upsets, until the coach had pulled out of the vicinity and Abby realised she had left her phone in a toilet cubicle...(not another one!). Luckily it was safely returned to her and we were only 10 minutes late back to the collège.

All in all, there was something for everyone and we had a wonderful day of fun and sun.

Don't worry, we'll put them to work again tomorrow as they are spending the morning in school!

A plus!

Un lundi coloré!

Bonjour bonjour!

Le weekend s'est très bien passé ici en France! What a full and frenetic weekend our students have had! We caught up with them bright and early this morning. After a day and a half of having to parler le French, our élèves found their voice with a vengeance and couldn't wait to regale us with their stories...

Some had experienced the historic theme park Le Puy de Fou with its live animals (a lion in the Roman colesseum, a bird show). Others were entertained in Nantes with its giant mechanical elephant, including Mr Spurdell. Perhaps the most unusual sortie was Saturday night's fête des couleurs; several students took part in this colourful festivity which required them to throw coloured powder at each other. As far as we can gather, this resembled the Indian Holi festival.

Many had enjoyed crêpes and glaces at the beach and all had apparently eaten their weight in sucreries (sugar!!), and had only a small appetite for yet more bonbons during today's supermarket stop.

Only two students had succeeded in dropping their phones into the sea (George!), and down the toilet (Hannah!); a 20/22 success rate.

Today we began the day at Le Manoir des Sciences de Réaumur: a museum dedicated to the scientist Réaumur who, as we found out today, invented taxidermy and the thermometer! We had a tour of his recreated house and studio en français (bien sûr!), followed by an atelier (workshop) on... la couleur!

In the afternoon we recovered from so much learning, and sheltered from the rain, with a healthy dose of retail therapy. This allowed for replenishing supplies of sweets and chocolate. But, more importantly, we set students the €5 challenge of buying themselves an authentically French souvenir of their visit.

Tomorrow we're off to Futuroscope - a highlight for lots, particularly Maisie, Abby and Holly for whom it will be their third visit!

Bonne soirée à tous!

La Roche sur Yon 2019 - c'est parti!

Bonjour à tous!

We had a very timely and smooth departure from Sheldon at 2am on Saturday morning (!), and set off to France with 22 drowsy and excited students.

They were exemplary on the coach and, despite a long journey of 14 hours, we pulled into Collège Edouard Herriot just before 5pm in high spirits.

Everyone was thrilled to be imminently reunited with their French partners and had spent the last 30 minutes of the journey hastily practising their French and scribbling down essential phrases (je ne comprends pas!, Le Wi-Fi s'il vous plaît?!).

As we pulled up to the collège, we were greeted with welcome banners and a sea of happy faces. After lots of hugging and fairing of the bises, we waved everyone off to spend the weekend en famille.

We'll be in touch tomorrow to let you know if our students survived a weekend of frogs and snails and parler français!

A plus !
Mrs Bowie, Miss Lang and Mr Spurdell

Au revoir

Dernier jour en France 😢

We can tell we're on our way home after hours of passing through beautiful French countryside en car, as the weather has got bleaker and the Friday bank holiday/half term traffic has hit with a vengeance. We're sad to be back but want to say a grand merci à tous nos superbes élèves for their willingness to really enter into the spirit of the exchange. They have been a delight all week.

The weather too has been glorious all week and yesterday was no exception. We had a beautiful sunny day for the annual joint outing to the theme park Le Futuroscope, a big hit amongst the students. Some nouveautés this year included a film about Thomas Pesquet, the French equivalent of Tim Peake, revealing incredible images and footage taken from the ISS, a virtual reality 'Racing Xperience' and a 4D around the world 'Extraordinaire Voyage'.

Miss Lang got vertigo at the Aérobar, enjoying a refreshing drink (of water) 35m up in the air, whilst others cooled off at Le Splash, danced with the robots, or lounged on bean bags in shadier spots.

Bref, une excellente fin à un excellent voyage!

Only 3 hours to go at time of writing before home sweet home. Strange déjà-vu as we stop at the UK services for one last McDonalds before hometime!

A l'année prochaine!
Mrs Bowie, Miss Lang and Mr Holgate

Journée au collège

Bonjour à vous,

Wednesday morning saw our students spending the morning in collège. This is a really eye-opening experience for our Sheldon students and one which we hope will stick with them for a long time to come. The school had gone to huge efforts on our behalf and our students felt like rock stars as they were greeted with the Union Jack flying, personalised welcome banners, and the Sheldon fan club below sporting their school jumpers! Who knew the Sheldon uniform could look so à la mode!  

We were greeted in usual tradition with a welcome from the Head, le Principal du Collège, and a mountain of local brioche. Once stuffed to the brim with their second breakfast, all students took part in 3 lessons ranging from maths ("c'est trop difficile!") and anglais to arts plastiques, musique, and tennis de table. Some took part in fantastic bilingual quizzes and board games whilst others did the 'floss' to African rhythms. 

We are always impressed by how our students step up to this challenge, but were particularly proud of the whole cohort this year. This is the first year that all of us, even our youngest Year 8 students, have spent the week en famille. The calm confidence and sheer enthusiasm with which all élèves, French and English, undertook all activities and communicated with each other, was testament to the success of this year's exchange.