Moving Up!

In 2008 I first experienced the world of Summer Schools.  I was going to New Zealand to work as a Sports Coach on my placement year from university, and with a few free weeks before I was due to leave the UK, I decided to apply to be an Activity Leader at Dean Close Summer School.  I’d always worked with children, coming from a background in Sports Coaching, and was attracted to the role because of the unique challenges of working residentially and with international students.  What a fantastic choice!  I worked at the school for 3 weeks leading a variety of activities such as Silly Olympics, Talent Shows and Pool Parties. It was a truly enjoyable experience! The following year, on returning from my time abroad I immediately returned to work for Summer Boarding Courses again at Dean Close.  I had another fantastic summer, full of exciting challenges, great kids and a brilliant staff team.

 

The following summer, 2010, I had the opportunity to work at one of our newer schools, Norman Court, and I jumped at the chance.  With my added experience I took on the role of Activity Manager, which enabled me to coordinate the programme of afternoon and evening entertainment for the students.  The school proved to be fantastic for our 8-12 year old age group, with big open spaces, and a stately home for accommodation. We launched a variety of different activities including Capture the Flag, Treasure Hunts and our English Fete afternoon complete with bouncy castles and inflatable slides.  I found working at a school for our younger students immensely rewarding.  With many of the children being away from home for the first time, it was amazing to see their transformation over the course of just a few weeks. Often nervous, timid children with little or no English would leave the school as confident and energetic students fully participating in lessons and activities. 

 

In 2011 I took on the role of Centre Manager for the next two years at the school.  One of the most rewarding elements of this was seeing so many students returning to us, or going on to one of our other SBC schools for older students, and seeing how much they have developed over a period of just a few years! 

                                                                                                                                            

I am delighted to say I will be joining the Head Office SBC Family in January to coordinate one of our new schools, Abberley Hall in Worcestershire. Following the sad closure of the main school at Norman Court last year, Abberley Hall will now be catering for young students aged 8 – 12 years old.  I will be using all the experience that we have gained from Norman Court to ensure that Abberley Hall provides all our students with an unforgettable experience and we are excited about recreating the Norman Court magic at Abberley Hall.  The idyllic setting at Abberley Hall makes the school an incredibly safe and friendly environment for children to come and stay.  We aim to help all our students to improve their English and grow in confidence but more than that too – we want to provide the experience of a life-time! 

 

Will – Summer Boarding Courses Manager

All in a day’s work…

2012 will be my twelfth summer as a Centre Manager and my seventh with Summer Boarding Courses. I have managed at three of SBC’s four schools and every summer brings new challenges, new experiences and new friends. But what exactly does the Centre Manager do?

A lot of our work begins before anyone arrives at the school. Planning the bedroom arrangements, double-checking all of the arrival information and putting the final touches on our activity programme. There is a lot of preparation work that means that when the first student comes out into the Heathrow arrivals hall with a beaming smile on their face, you know you are in for a great summer.

Once they have been transferred from the airport by our arrivals team, new students are greeted on site by our staff team, made to feel at home, are shown their rooms and get to meet their new roommates for the next few weeks. On the first morning new arrivals need inducting on the rules of the school, health and safety information and then testing for their English level by the academic team. They have a tour of the school and get to see all of the incredible facilities that it has to offer. As soon as lunch is over, everyone is raring to go with the first activity session. By now students are getting into the swing of the school and are already making new friends and forgetting any nervousness they may have had about speaking English! The first evening disco is always a great moment and brings the first hectic day to a close. Having relaxed back at the houses with juice and biscuits, it’s time for a welcome night’s sleep.

Every day throws up new challenges – there is always something to do. This could include organising prizes for a competition or a cake for a student’s birthday, managing the laundry service, consulting weather forecasts, refereeing World Cup football, checking departure flight times and airport transfers, presenting certificates to leavers, judging a talent night or simply chatting and having fun with students and getting to know them better.

Aside from running the day to day life of the school, the management team also plans the excursion programme down to the finest detail. At SBC the excursions are a real plus as students get to see some of the most exciting and beautiful places that the UK has to offer. It’s great to be able to get out and about with the students yourself and see them grow, not only in terms of their English, but as young individuals as they take in their new surroundings.

Welcoming young people from all over the world, many of them abroad without their families for the first time, brings great responsibility but also an incredible sense of satisfaction that would be hard to beat in any job. Watching the students get to know each other, learning about each other’s cultures and backgrounds and forging life-long friendships is an incredible experience for everyone on the staff team.

It is always an emotional moment when we finally have to say goodbye to students that have been with us, sometimes for several weeks. But behind the scenes the departure day is a clockwork operation ensuring students are transferred to airports and checked-in smoothly, whilst back at school staff prepare for new arrivals and a new chapter in the life of the school.

As with any job at the summer school, being Centre Manager requires a lot of energy. The pace of the school and the students keeps you going – you just don’t have time to stop. It is six weeks of your life that brings with it memories and friendships that last forever. The hardest part is when it’s all over.

Joe, SBC Centre Manager

‘It’s a Family Affair’

My work with Summer Boarding Courses began in the summer of 2006 at Dean Close School in Cheltenham. I had been teaching for the British Council in Italy, and had a Trinity College London TESOL certificate, I was fascinated by the idea of working with students and staff from around the world. Despite my experience in a number of previous summer schools, I quickly learnt that an international summer school was quite unique. The learning opportunities for our students reached beyond the classroom into the swimming pool, playing fields and weekly disco.

 

Like many SBC staff, I studied languages at university, having participated in exchange programmes since I was 11 years old. I know only too well the time and commitment involved in learning a language. Nothing pleases myself and the team at SBC more than seeing a shy, elementary student of English depart one of our summer schools filled with new found confidence, able and keen to communicate in English.

 

In 2007, I returned to Dean Close as the Welfare Manager and, despite the flooding across the South West of England, our caring and experienced staff still managed to deliver a memorable summer for hundreds of international students. In 2008, I was invited to take up the newly created post of “House Parent” in Dean Close, a role which was subsequently rolled out to every SBC summer school. This was my biggest challenge yet as I took responsibility for a boarding house of almost 60 boys. The experience taught me how different, yet at times strikingly similar, children from around the world can be. It is credit to our staff that so many young people are able to settle so quickly into their new “temporary” summer home. One of the strengths of our summer schools is the high staffing ratios, which mean we have the ability and time to get to really know our students. In only a short time, positive bonds are formed and we celebrate each of their successes in the summer school, whilst recognising when they may need encouragement and a friendly face.

 

In 2011, after three happy years in Dean Close, I was invited to join the staff team as House Parent in one of our newer summer schools – SBC Oxford – and so embarked on being involved in my 14^th summer school.

 

The role of House Parent is just as varied as the students who attend our summer schools.  Primarily, my job is to ensure that each is settled into life in a boarding school environment, is socialising well with their peers and is happy. In SBC Oxford, like Dean Close, we all work extremely hard to make sure this happens. It may just be a game of “Capture the Flag” before breakfast,    the introduction of student House Captains or perhaps the “Big Bedroom Clean Up” competition – everything is guided by our aim of building a positive community. Above all, we are big believers in each child feeling part of the SBC summer school family. While no summer school can fully replace a home environment, every summer in only a short period of time we create a happy, safe and fun place to live and learn.

 

As we act in loco parentis, no two days for the House Parent are quite the same and we expect, to do literally anything. Last summer alone I led a swimming pool diving competition; I was face painted in army camouflage and ran across a field chasing a flag; and hosted a house “Oscars” awards ceremony. What I realised early on in summer schools is that the more the staff are actively involved and having fun, the more the children relax and are prepared to have a go at new challenges.

 

Being part of the SBC summer school family has had a huge personal and professional impact on my life – for one, I now work full time in an international school, and voluntarily promote the SBC summer schools to my students and families across the world.

 

More importantly, each summer children from over 60 countries take home the powerful experience of not only learning and playing with children from each corner of the world, but also living alongside them – and that can be life changing.

 

I look forward to welcoming you to SBC in 2012.

 

Nick, SBC House Parent

Summer School: A Teacher’s Perspective

In my final year of university I was looking for a summer job and stumbled across Summer Boarding Courses on the Internet.  I’d enjoyed doing the Cambridge CELTA course in my second year and spent 9 months as an English Language Assistant just outside Paris during my third year so I was keen to use my teaching skills.  On top of that, after the summer I would be working as an EFL teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina so I thought teaching with SBC would be great preparation.

Following an interview, I was convinced Summer Boarding Courses was a good fit for me.  Fast-forward to June 2009 and I was working at Dean Close International Summer School in Cheltenham.  During a week of induction, I met EFL teachers at various stages in their careers all with lots of tips and advice to share.  The first week passed by in a blur and by the second week I had been bitten by the summer school bug.   The lesson observation and workshops run by the Director of Studies were very useful and there was a really positive environment in the teachers’ prep room – a great source of new games and classroom activities that I use to this day.

Teaching at summer school is a different experience from the teaching I do in the year.  Firstly the mix of nationalities makes the task of getting the kids to speak English much easier, which is definitely a welcome change from monolingual classes (encouraging 15 teenagers to stop speaking their native language at 8pm on a Friday evening can be a challenge!  Also the (surprisingly) enormous range of life experiences a group of 14 to 15-year-olds can bring to a classroom makes for some interesting (and heated) debates.  In one lesson a 2-minute lead-in featuring a picture of a full English breakfast developed into a 60-minute discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of British cuisine.  With students from Iran, Japan, Italy, Nigeria, China and Norway in the class it was fantastic hearing students have their say while showing respect for differing views.  I don’t think I have ever been in another environment with such a diverse mix of nationalities engaging positively with each other.

All of SBC’s summer schools are residential so teachers need to get stuck in with the pastoral side of the school, which is not something I have much involvement with when teaching abroad.  For me this is one of the best bits of summer school.  Getting to know your class and seeing them interacting with other kids at break time and on excursions is a great experience…especially if they actually remember and then use something they have learnt in your lesson.  The relationship between staff and students is particularly important at SBC Summer Schools where a lot of the kids come alone rather than in large groups. Getting the kids excited for the evening entertainment can mean anything from opening the karaoke competition with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”, a dodgy staff dance to a Grease megamix at Talent Night to taking part in the staff 5-a-side team at the SBC World Cup.  As a teacher, the chance to dress up, dance to Justin Bieber (pretending not to enjoy it), get your face painted and have flour thrown all over you whilst getting paid is not one that comes by very often.  A summer with SBC is one I cannot recommend highly enough to fellow teachers and students alike.

Hannah, EFL Teacher, Summer Boarding Courses

The Eternal Question!

You’re in a social setting, a friend’s party or a wedding reception perhaps, meeting new people and making small talk when the discussion moves on to what you do for a living. If you’re a doctor, teacher or lawyer, it seems a pretty straight-forward question to answer. If you run summer schools for a living as we have now done for many years, it is always met with the same response; ‘…….. OH, SO WHAT DO YOU DO THE REST OF THE YEAR?’

As I know only too well, in the world of running summer schools this is the Eternal Question and it’s not an easy one to answer particularly if the audience has never worked at, attended or sent their children to a summer school. To the initiated few, those who either work or have worked in a summer school or even the parents of children who have attended it still leaves some thinking ‘well surely that doesn’t take all year, does it?’

So, here to set the record straight is my account of what we actually do ‘the rest of the year’ at SBC. We view our year as September to August, starting with the round-up of one summer and finishing with the end of another summer.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, running a 5 week summer school is in fact a 52-weeks-of-the-year operation! Admittedly there is some down time right at the beginning of the cycle and September/October are our quieter months. Here we do lots of analysis of the summer that has just ended so that we can start putting into place any changes for the next year. New marketing materials and updates to existing publicity all has to be done within weeks of the previous summer, so all the decisions surrounding the summer school programmes and excursions have to be made and agreed upon. In the SBC Head Office, while we all have our separate roles and areas of responsibility, every member of the team has their input into what we do. It’s a very open place to work, ideas are generated and shared, explored together and implemented as a team.

By November and December we’re already taking bookings for the following summer, registering students and ensuring parents are well-informed about their children’s forthcoming English experience. In the run-up to Christmas we also put together our vital summer school materials; academic materials, handbooks and manuals all need updating year on year to ensure that every staff document or teaching tool is fresh, current and useful.

Of course there’ll be the inevitable SBC office Christmas party….. perhaps the less said about that the better!

January and February are busy months as the momentum in the booking cycle picks up and we start the huge task of recruitment. With 4 schools and approximately 100 staff, the recruitment operation has to be planned with military style precision! We now have a great core of returning staff who work for us year on year and so we build each summer school team from a solid base and recruit new team members who will compliment and add to the existing SBC ‘family’. Recruitment is paramount; the skills required to work in a summer school are varied yet specific. Above all, it comes down to the applicants’ characters and experience and we have a very thorough recruitment process to match these skills to the summer school teams.

March, April and May always fly by. We peel off our winter coats and woolly layers (of course while keeping an umbrella and raincoat nearby… it is the UK after all) as we get nearer the summer. Registering students and communicating regularly with parents takes up most of our day and places fill up on the courses. We keep a close eye on our nationality levels (60+ different nationalities in summer 2011), ensuring we have a good mix across all the schools and keeping a cap on nationality levels. We also manage the visa support process from this time, while still pushing forward with recruitment for the summer school teams.

By June we have taken multi-tasking to a whole new level! Finalising student bookings, recruitment, carrying out checks on our staff, checking payment of course fees, collecting travel information, confirming excursion bookings, confirming transport, checking visa applications, packing up stock….. it all comes together.

As soon as July 1^st comes around, the adrenalin is well and truly pumping as we put the final preparations in place to open the summer schools and welcome our first students of the season. And as soon as the year-round boarding school students leave for the summer, we move in and set-up what are, in effect, four year-round schools that run for just 5 weeks.  It is great to see all the hard work pay off, to welcome back the friendly faces of returning students and to see the progress of our students both in their English language and their social development. When the final students have left to fly home towards the end of August, the nostalgia has already set in as we look back at all the photos, hear all the stories and read the lovely testimonials from students, staff and parents.

A celebratory end of summer party, perhaps a week’s holiday and then we’re off again….

So there it is, in a nutshell….the answer to the eternal summer school question. Next time someone asks me I’ll just redirect them here!

Cally, Director, Summer Boarding Courses.

Hello Everyone!

Boarding is a traditional British experience that brings out the best in children and gives them independence, along with the skills to allow them to embrace life’s challenges with confidence.

As with UK boarding students during the academic year, international students attending a Summer Boarding Course will enjoy a huge variety of experiences inside and outside the classroom, all shared with other students from around the world.

Learning doesn’t stop when lessons finish – activities, excursions and socialising during meals and free time allows students to practice their English while interacting with friends. Whether the activity is sport, dance, drama, art, a talent show, horse riding, adventure sports or an excursion (including Oxford and London), students will be challenged and stimulated in a fun environment.

Summer Boarding Courses Ltd, in conjunction with leading UK boarding schools, operates high quality English summer school courses for international students. The summer courses provide a truly international experience in fantastic locations, with English language and activity programmes that ensure the students return home after a summer they will never forget.

Summer Boarding Courses uniquely combine the experience and tradition of our partner boarding schools, often gained over centuries of educating and developing children, with over 20 years of summer school management from the Directors of Summer Boarding Courses.

We will try and update this blog as often as possible with contributions from lots of different people involved with SBC.. not just the staff! We hope you enjoy the content and perhaps we will see you in England one summer