Trips, Visits and Events
The 1ère trip to London - 15 - 16 April
by Paddy Salmon
We four teachers, Ben See, Cindy Plecko, Darren Griffiths and myself, set off from the Gare du Nord on Eurostar at 7am on 15th April with 55 pupils from Premiere and returned at 11pm on 16th April with the same number!
We stayed one night in two hotels in Paddington, one of which, The Blue Daws Hotel, knows us very well indeed, and is, moreover, the cheapest hotel in London (£15 per head), though eminently suitable from our point of view - clean, friendly to groups and utterly reliable. Miss Flannery, known to many past generations of Premières, was there to welcome us as usual.
From the teachers’ point of view, the trip was extremely successful. We were able to utilise the two days at our disposal to make some memorable trips:
| - Friday - One group visited the Imperial War Museum, while the other group visited Tate Britain and looked at Turner and romanticism. Both groups asked pupils to study either one artefact or one painting in some depth in order to be able to write about it on their return. The Deborah Warner production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in the evening at the Barbican (no not “Barbie Doll”, I explained to a pupil who had misheard) was quite outstanding, and although we were tired by then, the pupils were immediately captivated by the energy of the crowd scenes and the level of acting. It was counted by all a great success.
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The group as a whole was very pleasant and easy to look after. The pupils all behaved very responsibly and times and instructions were adhered to. The system of sending them off in groups with money to “forage” for food worked very well and they responded to the trust we put in them extremely well.
We tried to get the pupils to take artistic photos for a mini exhibition, in categories such as “A London Face”, “Old and New”, “Nature in the City” and “Surprise!” We hope to be able to show these and some of the writing done at a later date.
Dernière modification le 19-05-06 par
