High School in Brazil

Andreas Heinrich is Xplore's Director of High School Programmes based in our office in Hamburg, Germany. He recently visited Via Mundo, our partner in Brazil, and met our students who had recently arrived. They were taking part in their orientation programme and intensive Portuguese lessons before starting school in a few weeks. 

Photo: Anderson França / Imirante.com

During their orientation programme they will visit a national park, meet with their host families who will look after them throughout their stay and settle in to their new environment. Brazilians love to welcome people and make the international students feel very special.

 

São Luís, where our students will live and study, is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Maranhao. The metropolitan area has a population of 1,227,659 and is ranked as the 16th largest in Brazil.  This big city has all the cafes and shopping malls that the students could wish for whilst being a very friendly and welcoming environment.

Portuguese is the official national language but English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum. Our students will attend private schools where they will be taught mainly in Portuguese, returning home fluent in the language but also having improved their English.

Our students are motivated to study in Brazil where they can experience life in a new culture and have experiences that only this opportunity will give them. For ten months our students will enjoy a tropical climate of between 25 and 33 degrees centigrade, spend their free time at one of the 9 beautiful beaches and be cared for by their host family.

They will enjoy an 8-week break in December and January, spending time with their friends and enjoying the beautiful location in which they live. They will then return to their home countries (mainly Germany and Scandinavia) in June.

We wish them the best year and look forward to sharing their stories!

A summer of fun at Xplore!

This blog article has been written by one of our lovely international students who stayed with us at our Worksop camp.  This is her experience of Xplore! 

"When I arrived here on Sunday, the first thing I thought was that the college is absolutely amazing and spacious. Throughout my time here the instructors have been friendly and are always willing to help out, when possible. Everyday you can choose different activities to participate in, which prevents you from being bored or sad! In these two weeks I learnt how to survive in the forest; create bracelets; masks and how to shoot an arrow like Katniss Everdeen, which I didn’t expect to be able to do.

English lessons are not a problem! At first I was worried of making some mistakes, then I stopped being afraid because teachers and instructors were able to put me at ease. Lessons here are a little bit different from those I have at school and topics we talk about are much more interesting.

On the 23^rd of July I went to Alton Towers via coach, which was long. When I arrived I saw The Smiler, with all of the loops, which made me feel like I was going crazy thinking would I be able to go on the rollercoaster. The Smiler is the scariest rollercoaster I’ve ever been on, even though it was incredible to go upside down. It was a wonderful day and if I could, I would do it again and again. 

In my personal opinion being here is an experience everyone should try at least once in their life time because you can improve your English whilst having fun and you can also make friends from all over the world, which is fantastic!”

Thank you Stephaniia, we hope to welcome you back at camp next summer!

Lego Robots!

Our Worksop centre has been the home to a group of 52 Chinese students for the past 2 weeks. They have been taking part in English lessons, adventure activities and excursions - including a trip to Legoland. Aside from the adventures of camp life, the children also came to take part in a Robot competition organised by the Bell Robot Alliance. 

The competition itself saw the children build their own Lego robots and compete in a basketball competition. Three Xplore staff were on hand to referee the competition and we were joined by the Education Manager for the First Lego League, who also provided the tables. It was an all day competition and was a huge success and a lot of fun. We hope this will be a continuous event year after year! 

Following on from the competition, some of our other international students were invited to take part in a Lego basketball competition against some of the Chinese students. This again was a big success with all children enjoying the fun.