Sir George Language and Activity Programme Blog

Welcome to the 2012 Sir George blog!

The course will be starting soon and we're looking forward to meeting all the new Sir George students from around the world. 

Sir George Week One

Hello, and welcome to the first entry of the Sir George 2012 blog. This week we had 19 students from 3 different countries, and everybody made friends very quickly! We welcomed the Russian group from Abakan, who were all very excited about studying in Cambridge, and enjoying the activities and excursions here at Studio. This week the project was to design and play a board game.

This week the students went Ten-Pin Bowling, designed and made masks to wear, as well as visit the world-famous King's College Chapel. Built over the 15th and 16th Century, the chapel is one of the finest examples of Tudor perpendicular architecture in the country. Students were amazed by the artwork of the carvings, sculptures and stained glass windows, and had their photo taken outside.

On Saturday, the students all got up early and took an excursion by coach to London. There they saw all of the main sights including Buckingham Palace, Westminster and Trafalgar Square, and in the afternoon spent some time shopping for souvenirs and looking at the ancient and priceless artefacts at the British Museum.

Photos of the students in lessons, activities and excursions can be found below. Next week, there will be even more Sir George students, and they will be playing pool, writing a report about London, and visiting Stonehenge. Make sure you check back next week to hear all about it! Have a great week everyone.

Sir George Week Two

Welcome to the second installment of the Sir George Winter Programme blog. This week we said goodbye to the Abakan group, but also said a big hello to lots of new students, all eager to start their lessons and the social programme. There was a chance to try charcoal sketching, a pool competition, and a special treat on Friday - 'Punting'! For those of you who are not sure what this is, punting is a very popular Cambridge pastime for locals and tourists alike. A 'punt', is a flat-bottomed boat that moves very slowly along the River Cam. It may have been a little cold, but students wrapped up warm with blankets whilst taking photos of the views.

The excursion this week was to Stonehenge and the ancient city of Bath. It was a bright sunny and clear day, and students first had an audio tour around the ancient ruins of Stonehenge, and spent the afternoon having free time in Bath. Some decided to visit the abbey, some visited the Roman baths, but some spent all afternoon in the shops buying souvenirs! You can see the photos of the excursion below, as well as of the students having fun in the afternoons during activities. See you all next week!

Sir George Week Three

 Hello to blog readers old and new!  The Sir George course is now in full swing, and everybody is making new friends and having a great time. We still have lots of students from all over the world studying on the course, including groups from Argentina and Uruguay, and even though it is summer time in South America, everybody is wrapped up warm in Cambridge with hats, scarves and gloves. A little cold weather doesn't stop us having fun!

This week we had some great activities on offer for the students, including a British quiz to test their wits, a game of cricket to test their sporting abilities, and a trip to the Fitzwilliam Museum to test their knowledge of arts and antiquities! The Fitzwilliam Museum is the official museum of the University of Cambridge, and has rare and priceless paintings and objects from all around the world. The Egyptian section seems to be the most popular, as well as the 'Impressionist Gallery', which has famous works of art by artists such as Monet, Degas and Renoir.

On Saturday the students went to the historic city of York, and spent some time walking around the ancient cobbled streets, and taking a trip back in time at the Jorvik Viking Centre. Jorvik has waxed figures, exhibitions and artefacts from over 1000 years ago. Some of the photos can be seen below. See you all next week for some more exciting news from Sir George!

Sir George Week Four

Welcome back to the Sir George blog, now in the fourth week of the course! Time is flying past very quickly, but we still have lots of things in store over the coming weeks. We had a new Russian group arrive this week, and they have mixed in very quickly with the old students, and everybody is practising and improving their English in lesson, activities, excursions and outside of school. We also celebrated and decorated the cafe for Lunar New Year this week, so Happy New Year to everybody at this special time.

The activity programme this week started with T-shirt design, where as you can see from the pictures below, students had the opportunity to draw some great designs onto blank T-shirts. On Thursday, all of the students got together in the cafe for a huge game of bingo, with various sweet prizes going to the lucky winners. We rounded the week off with a tour of St John's College, and a trip to the top of Great St Mary's church tower. From here you can get the best views of Cambridge. There are lots of stairs to climb to get to the top though! On Saturday the students went to London for the day by coach. They started their journey at the Tower of London from where they took a boat down the River Thames to Westminster where they could take lots of photographs of all of the most-famous sights. They then spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the great exhibitions of the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Victoria&Albert Museum! They especially liked the dinosaurs exhibition, the life-size model of a blue whale, and the actual spacecraft that made the Apollo 10 moon landings!

 Plenty more exciting and interesting things will be happening next week. In the mean time though study hard, and practise your English whenever you can. See you all in week five!

Sir George Week Five

Welcome back readers to the week five blog! Congratulations if you have made it this far, we are nearly there! Sadly, there is only one more week of blog left after this one, but don't worry, the last two weeks will be just as action-packed as the others! This week the temperature dropped below zero, and the weather was very cold! There was even talk of snow towards the weekend! This week we said good bye to the last of our groups studying on the Sir George program - La Mennais, Saint John and RAJ, we wish you well, and hope you continue to sudy hard andf practise your English. A fond farewell to the direct students who left this week too.

This week the activities were all indoor, so students didn't have to venture out in the cold. On Tuesday the students had the opportunity to show off their artistic flair and ability through watercolour painting. The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has a lot of watercolour master pieces by world-famous artists such as Monet and Renoir, so students could be inspired to paint some of their works, or perhaps a composition of their own. As you can see from the photos below, Studio currently has some great artists!. On Thursday everybody came in from the cold and did what British people do best in this weather - drink mugs of hot tea and eat biscuits! It was well needed on a very cold day, and everybody had fun practising English and making new friends over some light refreshments. We rounded the working week off nicely with a visit to King's College Chapel in the centre of Cambridge. Built over the reign of Kings Henry VI and Henry VIII, King's College Chapel is one of the finest examples of late Gothic perpendicular architecture in the country, and has some of the best stained glass too. Even though it is very large like a cathedral, it is still only a chapel!

On Saturday the snow started to fall and the students spent the morning in the city of Canterbury, and the afternoon at Leeds Castle. Even though it was another very cold day, students and staff still kept warm by visiting the cathedral in Canterbury, and keeping warm in coffee shops and department stores! The highlight of the afternoon was the maze in the grounds of Leeds Castle - everybody got lost, but somehow managed to find their way out again!

Sir George Week Six

Hello and welcome back to the final installment of the Studio Cambridge Sir George Blog Winter 2012. If you have just found this blog, and it is the first time you are reading it - where have you been?! You've missed out on a lot of fun over the past couple of months. But don't worry, if you look up, you can read about everything that has been happening since the beginning of the academic year.

This week, the last of the Sir George students enjoyed some great activities in the afternoons. These included drama and language games, clay modelling and a trip to the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens. It was still very cold, but the students braved the chilly weather and had a relaxing stroll around the gardens, taking in the wildlife and nature, as well as admiring and photographing some very rare trees, plants and flowers. They were especially beautiful with a little twinkle of snow on them.

So there we have it - the course, sadly has now finished, and this chapter is now unfortunately closed. There is no doubt though after 6 weeks, 84 lessons, 18 activities, 6 excursions and 122 students, everybody agreed that it has been the best Sir George course ever, and that everybody has lots of fun, as well as made new friends for life and most importantly, practised and improved their English.

So on that note it's not a 'goodbye' from me, but rather a 'see you later'. As I'll be back later in the year with more blogging. And plenty more stories to tell!

See you then - I can't wait.

 Guy