We arrived at Newington College on Sunday, 15 May. The discovery of this Australian private school was full of surprises. In fact, there are a lot of differences between the Australian and French educational systems. Firstly, we were all surprised by the number of facilities at the school. If we had to compare our school to yours, your sports fields (Rugby, Football, Swimming pool and Gym), cultural buildings (Music, Library, Chapel and the Centenary Hall) are just amazing. The school system is pretty different too. Indeed, every student has his own timetable and they are divided in eight different houses. In France, you stay in the same class for all your lessons all year long.

Concerning our experience, we did a lot of excursions in Sydney and across Australia. But let’s speak first about all the things we did with the school. At first, Mr Bennett took us to Manly Beach. We had our first swim in the Pacific Ocean. It was great. Then, we had a typical Australian morning tea after swimming in the pool.

We also discovered AFL by going to watch a great match between the Sydney Swans and North Melbourne.

During our stay, we also met the French exchange girls from our school and we did an excursion organised with PLC. We visited the University of Sydney and we took a bus tour across different suburbs around the city on our way to Bondi Beach. We came back from Watson Bay on a fast ferry. It was very fun.

On our last Wednesday, Axel’s host brother’s mum, Ms Pidcock, organised a walk around Manly. The landscapes were beautiful and we took a lot of great photos.

Our experiences and feelings about following Australians lessons are very varied due to differences between Australian and French schools. We all followed our exchange students in their lessons and we found that it was incredible the fact that they use their computers instead of pen and paper. We also were surprised by the fact that pupils and teachers are very close and we think that it is better than the relationships in the French school system. We spent a lot of time in French lessons and we hope we managed to give advice to and help Newington students.

We would like to thank the Newington staff for welcoming us generously during their lessons and to all of the sports staff who integrated us into gym lessons and rugby teams. Thank you to Newington students for their kindness towards us, we love your mentality, stay as you are!

Thank you for all you did for us.

Joshua Boussekhane, Nathaniel de Lachaise, Pacome, Nicolas Heyraud, Benjamin Lussert, Axel Elmaleh, Sylvain Jeanneau and Théo Develter
French Exchange Students