VRS Djursholm English Trip to England

1 oktober, 2018

The English department from VRS Djursholm have just returned from a tour of academic institutes in England.

The trip began in Oxford at Cothill House School where we had meetings with senior academic staff to discuss school policy and approaches to learning. We visited an assortment of English classes ranging in ages from eight to thirteen. Despite being a boarding school with some stark contrasts to the Swedish school system, we were reassured to see many similarities in our teaching styles and to also see the teachers had the students at the centre. The visit enabled us to grow our teaching arsenal by sharing lots of ideas, experiences and resources, specifically in how students ask and answer questions, different modeling techniques, and the importance of high expectations.

We continued on to Oxford for a literary tour where the student lives of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, T.S. Elliot, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh (to name but a few) were regaled in great detail to us by our suitably eccentric guide. We left Oxford with a sense of wonder at the architectural magnificence and the extensive list of distinguished alumni.

Our next adventure was Eton College. Here we were once again greeted with warmth and were able to observe some of the morning lessons. We were given a campus tour which included the College Chapel, The Museum of Eton Life and The Museum of Antiquities which houses a number of priceless Egyptian artifacts and even the College Library which houses more than 150,000 books, essays and letters ranging from the 9th to the 21st Century.

We returned home a tighter-knit group with many wonderful shared experiences and lots of excellent ideas to inspire our own students and our own teaching.