Exchange with a student from the St Wilfrid’s R.C. College
The school
The St. Wilfrid’s R.C. College is a specialist college for mathematics and computing. It is a school in South Shields, in the north of England nearby Newcastle. The address is Temple Park Road South Shields, Type and Wear NE34 OQA.
The R.C. in the name of the school stands for “roman catholic”. The name St. Wilfrid’s come from a man named St. Wilfrid’s. He was a lover of learning and music and he was a very versatile and accomplished man.
In the school, there are many strict school rules for the students, for example the one-way system. All the 1000 students have to walk in only one direction in every corridor. The students also had to wear a uniform, which is strict.
The students have a different class for every subject because they can choose their subjects on their own. There are subjects that they have to do (English, Maths, Science, Religion Education and Physical Education) and three subjects that they can choose: The first subject can be chosen between French, Spanish and Computer Science; the second subject between History and Geography; the third subject between Travel, Drama, Music, Art and many others.
All the students and teachers are assigned to different houses. Your house is like your school family. If you have any problems, you go to the teacher of your house. In which house you are is decided randomly and you stay in the same house your entire school life. The students can win but also loose points for their houses, depends how hard they work. The house with the most points at the end of the year got a house award.
All the students begin at 8.45am with a pray and finish at 3.10pm. There are one 15min and one lunch break. In these breaks, the students can participate at different language, music and sport clubs.
My activities and opinion
I got the contact to the family of my exchange student through a friend of my brother who did an exchange two years before with the same family. I found it a great opportunity to improve my English and collect new impressions from another country.
During the two weeks, I was for the most of time in the 10th grade with my exchange student. During the lessons, I participated and tried to work like all the other students at the school. I did not have the opportunity to see the school activities, but I have talked to many students who are part of the different activities.
The family, every student and most of the teachers were nice to me. I really enjoyed the stay in England at this school. It was very interesting to have an impression of an completely other daily school life.