Xplore are proud to announce the first Anglia Examination results for the 2013 season. During the past six weeks of summer, nearly 2,000 students aged six to eighteen, have participated in the Language Activity Camps across seven centres nationwide.
Of the 53% of exams marked thus far, our students have achieved a fantastic 95% average pass rate combining all those who achieved a pass, merit or distinction grade.
We are still awaiting the remaining results of the Anglia test papers, which vary through nine different levels from ‘First Step’ to ‘Proficiency’, measuring all aspects of learning a language – listening, reading, writing and speaking which our specialised teachers delivered through seven different teaching levels, available at different camps across the UK.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Behind the Scenes in the UK Head Office
The sun is shining after a long spell of
cloud and the UK head office is buzzing!
In the Sales and Marketing department there is always something new
happening and I’m super excited about my latest task of putting together next
years Group Travel brochures! As our
business grows it is time to separate out the information we give to our UK and
international groups; so double the fun for me!
When I start thinking about a brochure I have to first think about what the purpose of the brochure is, who will be reading it and how much information they will need. I then think about the page layout and what order my reader will find the information most useful. In my head I start to think about the photos we could use from our library of images as well as getting an idea for the overall look of the brochure. My aim is to capture the reader’s attention using photos and graphics whilst providing them with all the information they need to make a booking or enquiry.
Once I have a good idea of content I then
brief our Marketing Design Manager in the USA who has the super talent of
putting ideas onto paper using his creative skills! He will always suggest ways of presenting
information that I won’t have thought of so his input is invaluable. We work together via email and Skype (what
did we do before Skype?) until we have a brochure that we are happy to
show to our Directors. With fingers
crossed we take them through the design and listen to their
feedback. With all final amends made it
is time for proofreading. There have
been times that I have been glued to a brochure until 3am seeking out any
obscure grammatical errors that I don’t want to miss! The joy of writing for a website is that you
can go back and correct any errors but printed material is of course a
different matter! During the design
process I will have also been thinking about how many brochures we need and
start to get quotes from printers. We
made the decision some time ago to print on environmentally friendly paper; I
actually prefer the look and feel of it to normal paper and knowing that it
could have had up to 6 other lives before becoming our brochure gives it a bit
of character! If I’m at all worried
about how a particular colour will print on recycled paper I know I can visit
the printing company to see it come off the press and make any colour
corrections there and then. We also take
into account the cost to the environment of shipping and we are trying to use
other means such as QR codes to direct people to our websites for further
information, thus hopefully cutting down on how much paper we use.
The whole process of creating a brochure can
take a few months and a lot of thought and effort goes into it but it is always
worth it in the end! Here in the UK head
office we have brochures dating back to our humble beginnings in 1987 (pictured above) and it is
always fun to flick through and see our journey not just in terms of branding
and design but also products and destinations!
The only question is ‘are you coming with us’…?
Friday, 21 June 2013
KG Adventure and Xplore: New newsletter out!
We're glad to announce that the first newsletter of KG Adventure and Xplore got send out this morning. Every participant of our indie camps should already received it! If you want to sign up for the newsletter you can do so by entering your name and email adress here:
Introducing our NEW German Centre!
Located in the beautiful region of Sauerland, right beside Lake Sorpesee, is the home of our new International Summer Camp!
After month of looking around and visiting different places we finally are able to offer a wonderful summer camp in Germany. We will be located in the village of the Hachen Sports School, which has the perfect facilities for a fantastic international summer camp with students coming from all over the world! Our activity programme will be delivered in English and the primary language on camp will also be English, in addition to this, for those wanting to learn English more intensively, we offer English lessons as well. As this is an international camp, there will also be the opportunity for those who's first language is already English to participate in learning German!
Activities include:
Baseball, Basketball, Football, Headis, Kin-Ball, Tennis, Ultimate Frisbee, Volleyball, Bridge Building, Cross Boccia, Raft Building, Geo Caching, Kayaking, Climbing, Mountain Biking, Survival Skills, Trust Trail and much more!
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MY EXPERIENCE ABROAD
Our German exchange student Kersten, who's currently in Argentina, sent us these nice letter we don't want to keep back from you:
Almost two years ago, I came up with the idea to do an exchange year and to learn Spanish. It was not really hard for me to choose my destiny. When I went to Xplore to get some information about my possible new homes they told me all about Argentina and Latin America. So I enrolled myself and my host family has been picked very fast. I also looked up information on the Internet. Unfortunately I found more bad experiences than good ones. Sincerely, what I read made me become nervous. Then I arrived in Argentina. My worries as well as any doubts caused by the written experiences were gone.
One week I stayed with the group of German exchange students in a hotel in Rio Ceballos – near Córdoba - to get prepared for everything that could happen to me. Then the day came. My host family arrived to pick me up. I was pretty nervous because I wasn´t able to speak enough Spanish. It was not a problem at all because they tried to explain me everything and helped me to express myself.
The best thing about Argentina is that everyone wants to know as much as possible about oneself and the culture you live in. This is how my host family is. They made me become a part of their family really quickly. In my second week I went to school for the first time. I was totally impressed how everyone wanted to talk to me and to be my friend. So I started my high school year pretty well. If you try to speak Spanish and to get in contact, it is almost impossible to not get friends in Argentina.
I made a lot of new friends in my school but during the first month sometimes I was still bored at home. So I started to go out after school and spent more time with my new friends and that was when my exchange year really started. I began to “xplore” a new culture and the Argentinian mentality.
During my time in Argentina I learned a new style of living, other values and the real meaning of the word "family". In Argentina and especially in Córdoba the family is more important than in Germany. Furthermore, I learned to speak Spanish nearly perfectly and I made friends in the whole city of Córdoba. One friend of mine introduced me to the work of an event manager in Córdoba's centre. The result is that I now have a rough idea of what I could do in the future.
I still have 40 days left and I'm already planning my return to Argentina. All in all I think the decision to go on an exchange year in Argentina was the best decision of my life. Both organisations ICC - from Argentina - and Xplore took care of me and made me have an awesome year in Argentina. I am able to say that it is the best year of my life so far. Now I have two homes.
Kersten
We're glad Kersten is having such a great time and we're looking forward to receiving more experience reports from all of you!
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