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. 

Mardi - plage, purchases and petting the deer

Bonjour!

We spent the first part of Tuesday in the beautiful seaside town of Les Sables d'Olonne. It is very well-known in the Vendée region and was also familiar to some of our students who took part in the trip last year. They seemed thrilled to be back and remembered the central square and all the glaces and gaufres that they had enjoyed in the sun!

This year, however, we went directly to the beach and enjoyed an hour of paddling and relaxing in the sun (encore des glaces!). Life on the French exchange is tough!

After a short walk around the Lac de Tanchet and lunch with a view across the lake, we made our obligatory supermarket stop at LeClerc. Here students bought an array of traditionally French keepsakes and souvenirs du voyage such as boules, French novels, recipe books and board games... as well as inevitable footballs and Xbox vouchers ("the receipt is in French Miss").

Perhaps the most novel experience of the day was a trip in the afternoon to feed the deer (les dains). One of the French teachers and her husband kindly invited us to their private deer park and gave our students a chance to see them in a natural environment. Lots of bread tempted some of the deer to venture very close to our kids and there was a lot of excitement and photos (not of the deer; selfies and snaps of students pretending to have antlers, obviously).

On arriving back in La Roche, a few eager students had a quick look around Place Napoléon, the main town square, and a final crêpe, before heading off with their French partners for the evening.

A busy but rewarding day. 

A très bientôt!

Lundi en famille

Salut de la Roche sur Yon!

Tout se passe super bien ici en France! Our students were so excited to be reunited with their partners after their time together in March, and were desperate to arrive on Sunday afternoon after 16 hours of voyage (as were we...). We were met with a very warm welcome and everyone bundled off to enjoy their bank holiday weekend en famille.

It came as a bit of a shock for everyone to find themselves at our partner school, Collège Edouard Herriot, bright and early on Tuesday morning after a weekend of s'éclater et se régaler (having a whale of a time!). We spent some time first thing in the morning sharing tales of adventure: picnics on the beach, visits to La Rochelle, Nantes, theme parks, music festivals and restaurants. Some had tried mussels, others ratatouille, but most seemed to have preferred gâteaux au chocolat and glaces!

All in all a great start to the week!
A plus!

French exchange 2018 - c'est parti!

Bon matin à tous!

We have arrived in France! Currently 8.30 local time. 5 hours on the coach, 2 pitstops, 1 channel crossing, many Costas and McDonalds consumed (it seems the potential of froggy food for 5 days calls for pre-6am chips) and 39 students still in tow... wish us luck!

A plus!
Mrs Bowie, Miss Lang and Mr Holgate