St Benedict's School Visit

Today was the fourth day of our visit to the United Kingdom. We had breakfast at the travel lodge and proceeded on to St. Benedict's Catholic High in Stratford for our school exchange. The excitement was tangible in the bus and everyone was looking forward to meeting the students. As we turned into the school's car park, we were briefed by Miss Edwards on how we should conduct ourselves. After many minutes of waiting, we finally entered the school building.

Upon entering, we were greeted by a group of students with faces lit up with wide grins. It was a welcoming sight and we immediately felt at home! We "buddy-ed up" and the students then brought us on a tour of the school compounds. When we had first arrived, the school seemed small because we only saw the front building. This viewed changed dramatically after we were brought on the tour as we realised their school was much bigger than we had first thought. Because of the vast land space that they have, their school is built over a large area of land, unlike our school in Singapore which is built on a small area of land due to land constraints. Thus, their classrooms, laboratories and halls were all on ground level.

After our tour, we split up and followed our individual hosts to attend their lessons. Their lessons are each an hour long, with five lessons and two breaks in each day. School dismisses at twenty past three and they do not have after-school activities like we do. The lessons we attended today were ICT (Information and Communications Technology) and Biology. Laptops with headphones and microphones were used in their ICT lesson and they used programs such as Audacity to record audio clips. The students were efficient and they completed their task by the end of the period. They worked well with each other and did not get distracted even with the computer in hand. This is something I feel that we really can learn from. Later, after a twenty minute break, we proceeded for our Biology lesson. As the teacher went through their science paper, all the students, ALL, paid close attention and asked sensible questions throughout the one hour. They were very attentive and we could really tell that they took their studies very seriously. This is another aspect in which the students in St. Benedict's High take the cake. Their lesson was carried out with minimal noise and fooling-around. All in all, they were very good students.


The bell rang at 12.20pm, signaling the time for break. This was our last hour with them and we really cherished it. Our hosts brought us to explore their school field, which was massive, and we took a final group photo before saying our good-byes. Hugging farewell, all of us yearned to stay for awhile longer. However, we left with smiling faces and the good memories, coupled with the new friends we made, it is an experience that we would definitely not forget.

It was a very pleasant experience and we would all like to thank St Benedict's Catholic High for their hospitality!