The following visits are proposed for 2019 - 2020:

Year 7 French Day Trip to St Omer and Boulogne

On this trip students get the opportunity to practise some of the French they have learned in Year 7.  We begin by visiting the Auchan hypermarket in Longueness, near St Omer, which is about 30 minutes’ drive from Calais. Students will order their lunch in French at the Flunch restaurant in the corner of the hypermarket, before indulging in some shopping in the hypermarket itself.  We then proceed to the town of St Omer itself to visit the cathedral, a minor basilica, which is almost one thousand years old.  Next, our students head to an ice cream parlour to order (again, in French!) “une glace” of their choice.  To round off a long but very enjoyable day, we visit the Nausicaa sea life museum in Boulogne where the penguins, stingrays, sea lions and hammer-head sharks are particularly popular. C’est fantastique!

Years 8, 9 & 10 French Theatre Performance   

Every year, we invite the Onatti Theatre Company to visit Newlands to perform a play in either French, German or Spanish, on rotation.  In 2022 it is the turn of French, so we are looking forward to the production of “La maison hantee”.  It is a play that is both scary and frightening...well, it is supposed to be! However, the actors regularly break out of character when things go wrong and this turns the haunted play into a hilarious farce.  This show certainly is not scary, but it is definitely very, very funny!   It is performed entirely in the target language by native French speakers. 

Year 9, 10 & 11 Pen Pal Exchange

We offer Year 9, 10 and 11 to participate in pen pal exchanges with our partner schools in Duisburg (Germany) and Metz (France).   A new pen pal exchange should start this year with a school in Valladolid (Spain).  This gives students the opportunity to communicate in the target language with young people their age.

Years 10 to 13 German Exchange to Duisburg

We plan to resume our German Exchange with the Gesamtschule Duisburg-Süd will take place in September 2023, with our German friends returning to Maidenhead in spring 2024. This successful exchange with a mixed comprehensive school in the Ruhr area of northern Germany has taken place every year for the past sixteen years, with huge linguistic benefits.  The exchange is offered to students who have opted to study GCSE and/or A-Level German.  As well as a wide-ranging programme of cultural visits, students have the opportunity to practise German in real-life situations by living with a family for one week. They gain a unique insight into a German school and the lifestyle and customs of Germany.