Xplore are top of the class!

Xplore has shown itself to be at the top of the class for educational visits by being awarded a Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge again this year. 

Awarded by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, the LOtC Quality Badge combines for the first time learning and safety into one easily recognisable badge for all organisations providing learning outside the classroom experiences.

The benefits of children learning outside the classroom...

·     Research shows that children learn best through real life experiences. Taking learning beyond the classroom walls makes learning more memorable and appeals to different learning styles. 99% of teachers say that students are more animated and engaged when learning outside the classroom (Opinion matters survey on behalf of TUI Education Division, 2010)

·     LOtC supports improved standards back INSIDE the classroom, raising attainment, reducing truancy and improving discipline

·     LOtC is known to contribute significantly to raising standards & improving pupils’ personal, social & emotional development. It also contributes to the quality and depth of learning (OFSTED, Learning Outside the Classroom, How far should you go, 2008)

·     LOtC enables children to interact in new ways with their peers and adults, improving relationships between teachers and pupils, particularly with those students who are hard to reach in the classroom environment

·     LOtC is effective in delivering learning outcomes across all areas of the curriculum including literacy, numeracy, science, history, geography and IT and has the most impact when opportunities to learn outside the classroom are frequent, continuous and progressive

·     OFSTED says that LOtC is crucial to delivering a broad and balanced curriculum (response to Select Committee review, October 2010)

Why teachers should look for the LOtC Quality Badge when organising educational visits...

·     The LOtC Quality Badge is a national benchmark that accredits providers of learning outside the classroom offering good quality educational experiences and managing risk effectively

·     The LOtC Quality Badge is recognised across all sectors offering LOtC experiences including overseas expeditions, adventurous activities, heritage, arts and farming and countryside so teachers only need to look for one badge when taking children out and about

·     The LOtC Quality Badge provides assurance to teachers and parents regarding safety and the quality of learning

·     The LOtC Quality Badge cuts red tape for teachers when planning LOtC activities (N.B. It is a very good idea to find out how booking with a LOtC Quality Badged venue will reduce red tape for teachers in your local authority area, so you can specifically refer to that in your communications with teachers)

·     The Outdoor Education Advisers’ Panel has endorsed the award and ask that their Local Authority members request that teachers look for the LOtC Quality Badge when planning educational visit

Xplore welcomes our Taiwanese students

Located in the beautiful region of Sauerland, right beside Lake Sorpesee, is the home of our new International Summer Camp! Here we welcomed our first Taiwanese students at camp! 

Students from HESS International Education Group, Taiwan’s largest private English training company become the first students from the Far-East to join the Xplore summer camp in Germany.The group of 11 Taiwanese had a great time making friends with European students and learning English or German. As well as the wide variety of interactive activities the group visited Cologne as well as travelling through western Germany, Holland, Belgium and France before arriving in England to spend a further two weeks at the Xplore camp at Woodbridge School - five countries in just a few weeks- an amazing cultural journey for the young travellers!

My inspirational dad

Hi, I'm Han and I work for Xplore in the UK head office. Travelling was something that I wanted to do since childhood, having listened to my father's account of his 3 year round the world trip.  

He set off from London in a camper van with a sign in the back window that said 'AUSTRALIA OR BUST'.  He literally drove across Europe and Asia through many countries including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India and then later sold his van to get across the water to Australia and New Zealand. He has so many tales of the amazing people he met and their cultures, weddings he got invited to, places he worked and where he camped out. I found his tales fascinating and I only wish that he had had a better camera with him! 

He always enjoyed telling me about how he lived on pancakes cooked on a fire by the side of the road, to this day its pretty much all he can cook! He spent some time in Australia working with a New Zealander called Bodge Wallingford, a name that conjured up an image of fun and excitement for me as a child. I never really thought I would track Bodge down in New Zealand many years later, but I did and together we had a beer and caught up on what life had been like for them both since their adventures in the Australian outback...

As soon as I had finished school I saved just enough money to fly to Los Angeles and spent a few months circumnavigating the country on Greyhound buses. Having just 20 USD to live on each day meant that I walked everywhere, stayed in some interesting hostels and got to see every aspect of this amazing country. There were times when I wished I had bought an Amtrak ticket or better still a flight between cities, such as when my Greyhound pulled up outside a rather large prison on release day and picked up all the newly released inmates. I loved America for its people, beautiful landscapes and exciting cities. I came home with my eyes wide open.

Some time later my husband Rob and I travelled to Sri Lanka, a country which was unlike anywhere I had been before, truly beautiful and astonishing in so many ways. Rob had spent a year in Africa living in a mud hut and teaching English in Zimbabwe and travelled through many of the countries.  He had always wanted to go to New Zealand… So off we went, initially for the snowboard season but to then travel and work as 'WWOOF'ers which back then meant 'Willing Workers on Organic Farms'. The organisation is now 'Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms'. We worked for 4 hours each day and were rewarded with amazing experiences, food and a bed!

We were lucky to find work on a sheep farm in the most spectacular place on the eastern peninsula called Akaroa. Sue, the farmer, was on her own and relied on volunteers spending a few weeks with her. We did everything from baking, cleaning, painting, grubbing thistles from the hillsides, sheering, herding the sheep and moving an entire herd of cattle through the village. My job that day was to run ahead and close everyone's gates to their front garden! I realised very quickly what a tough existence it was but the rewards were plentiful. We picked our salad for lunch out of the vegetable patch and dug up our potatoes for dinner.  We were miles from the modern world and we got up when it was light and went to bed when it got dark, I loved the simplicity of it and we were sad to leave the farm and Sue.

We also found work at a hostel/hotel in another beautiful place called Glenorchy, which is just down the road from an aptly named place called Paradise and 40 minutes drive from the adrenaline fuelled town of Queenstown.  It was different work here but still outdoors and the owners were extremely kind to us.

For the rest of our time in New Zealand we travelled, walked through the miles of forests, kayaked around the north coast and generally enjoyed the peace and beauty of the islands. I loved the south island so much and some of my fondest memories are from here, however we found a beach 'Rarawa' on the north east coast of the north island that was total paradise.  The sand was white and littered with the most beautiful shells and as we body boarded in on the crystal clear waves fish surfed in with us. We had the whole beach to ourselves and it was magical.

I couldn't resist trying to track down my dads old pal Bodge and I knew he had lived Auckland so before we left I trawled through the phone directory and phoned all 'Wallingfords' until I found his sister. Bodge had lived and worked in Thailand since the 70s but he was in Auckland visiting family that week. It was a stroke of luck and I loved being able to meet this character from my childhood.

We spent some time in Australia as backpackers, taking buses up the east coast then along the Great Ocean Road and up into the red desert. We had an amazing time but it just made me realise that I needed to one day go back and do all the places on the west coast that we didn't get to!  Camping out in the red desert was quite an experience having always been a little squeamish when it came to insects and these were certainly overgrown ones but I soon found a love for the 'Thorny Devil' the cutest little lizard.

Our travels to New Zealand and Australia gave us the opportunity to see so many animals in their natural habitat; orca, dolphins, blue whales, penguins, koalas, kangaroos, snakes…. too many to mention! Certainly the best place to find dangerous creatures was Fraser Island off the east coast of Australia!  

There is so much of the world I would love to see and I feel lucky to have travelled to the places I've been in Europe and further afield, but now I'm the parent recounting tales of far off lands to my own children and I know its not a question of when they will go travelling but where!  I look forward to listening to their tales one day. 

Experience of a lifetime in China

Amber Robertson worked for Xplore last summer teaching English at Finborough Hall. A parent of one of the young children staying with us from China asked Amber to join her for a few months to give private English lessons to her and her daughter. 

'Altogether I have lived, worked and experienced China for just under five months. In this time, I have learnt a lot about myself, other people and other cultures. The reason I was there was to teach a mother and daughter English.  In our time together their levels have improved from Elementary to Advanced and Primary to Preliminary.  Alice is eight years old, very shy, sweet and adorable, I quickly learnt she enjoys dancing and sparkly things and appeared very happy by my presence; which made me equally so.

My flat was a two bedroom, 24^th (top) floor two bedroom apartment it is the biggest flat I have ever had, with a great view of Shanghai. 

So, what do I think of Shanghai, where I have been living? I prefer it one hundred percent to London. How would I describe it as a city? Unusual and enrapturing.

People I have met in China are very kind, welcoming, hospitable, will do anything and everything to help you and they are honest. Little English is spoken but like travelling anywhere, I think it is polite to make an effort to try and learn about the culture and the people of the country you are visiting. Most mornings at around 08:30 there was beautiful Chinese music played outside of the building where I lived. Elderly women and men do Tai-chi either in the outside gardens, (green space) if it is not raining, or under outdoor shelter. I have learnt that round tables are for good luck and health and so most families will have this in their homes. I'm getting better with chopsticks, realising the trick is to hold them three quarters of the way up. However being left handed with chopsticks is unusual in China as everyone holds them with their right hand. People (I am informed) think I am Russian, Ukrainian or French but not English!

My experiences have involved both some of the most difficult and challenging times but more so the best of times. It is by far the best or one of the best things I have done. Luckily, I made a good network of friends, all of which are Chinese and Shanghainese. In my free time I explored, mainly on my own, sometimes with friends and also with the family.

What next? My friends here tell me I seem more like an Asian girl than a Western girl, I have always been most attracted to Asia so over the next five years I will live in at least two or three more Asian countries. Tomorrow I will fly to Taiwan and work in a summer camp teaching for two weeks. Following this, I shall be moving to Italy for two months to teach also both in summer camps and also privately. Then I will end the year teaching for six months in Indonesia, after all these great experiences I must return to England for two months to finish my third year of University. Then I shall move back to Asia, to Thailand for two months.

I am both thankful and grateful for all the opportunities that have both come my way and which I have worked hard for since the age of twelve, many of these opportunities are unusual for a British national such as myself.

Thank you to everyone who made this experience possible, Xplore has given me many great memories over the past year and I can only recommend them and forever be thankful.'

'School is fun again!'

My name is Maren and I work in the Xplore office in Hamburg. I take care of most of the applicants that have the U.S. as their destination.

This past February I got the chance to visit some of our students placed in Indianapolis, IN and surroundings. I also was able to spend some time with their Local Coordinators (LCs) from CIEE and the Regional Director of the area, Edwina. This trip gave me a lot of insight into how much work and passion they all, CIEE and our students alike, put into this experience so that students and their host families all have a great time!

Edwina and her LCs had made a plan for me so that I could go see as many students as possible and also get tours through a few schools, either by our students or by a staff member, to see how different the schools are and what they offer in terms of classes but also regarding their amenities.

It was really impressive to see how many different possibilities students in the U.S. have in school, independent from their interests: humongous and well-equipped gyms or even pools (swimming is big in Indianapolis!), great musical groups or orchestras, International Clubs, debate clubs and a lot more. There is something for everyone and our students that I met told me that this has been a great way for them to get integrated in school life and to make new friends. When I asked them what one of the most difficult parts of the exchange was, almost all of them said the first day of school – being there among complete strangers, surrounded by English all day, not finding one’s way around, standing in the cafeteria at lunch time looking for a place to sit… But being open and going to those extracurricular activities has helped them a lot.

They also were impressed by the choice of subjects that were presented to them. They all had to take some classes like Maths, English, Geography and the like, but they most enjoyed the subjects we don’t usually have in Germany: Pottery, Nutrition, Weight Lifting, Choir, Drawing and many more. According to them “school is fun again!”

I got to see a lot of things and meet many nice people while I was there: different types of neighborhoods (from middle of nowhere to close to the big city), sports fields (covered in snow…), I met guidance counselors and other school staff, was introduced to host families, enjoyed road trips to students with members of CIEE and learned more about their work, how they recruit host families and handle certain problems.

All in all it was a wonderful experience to see what all the work put into applications leads to: the students’ performance in school and their interactions with others, speaking English without great efforts, embracing the American culture and everything that comes along with it (household duties, rules, homework, sports competitions).  I went to the Orientation Meeting in New York with some of the students I visited and it has been amazing to see how much they have developed personally and improved their English since then! It really felt like they had become part of the American life.

So thank you to everyone who made this trip possible!