Exchange link with top Spanish college a huge success

Last week 17 lucky AS and A2 Spanish students journeyed to the beautiful town of Hellin near Alicante, as part of an exchange link between Collyer’s and the Instituto Cristobal Lozano.

The Mayor of Hellin was delighted to personally receive the English visitors and invited the teachers and students to enjoy their stay in the historic Spanish town. The visit generated so much interest that Spanish television and radio broadcast the Mayor’s warm welcome!   

During their stay, the students enjoyed two full days of lessons with their new Spanish friends at the college and were also given guided tours of local historical sites.

Margarita Mortimer, who is Subject Leader for Spanish, was delighted that the students could benefit from this wonderful opportunity: “The students were able to get a valuable taste of the culture by staying with Spanish families and sampling the everyday life of people their own age in Spain. This is a vital part of their AS and A2 study. We are hugely grateful to the Instituto Cristobal Lozano community for their incredible hospitality”.   

As part of the trip students visited the cave houses found in Alcalá del Jucar, the oldest houses in the famous Spanish fortress Chinchilla. They also dropped in on the Oceanographic centre in Valencia, which features over 45,000 samples of 500 different specimens from under the sea.

Cesare Marchesan, who studies A2 Spanish, thoroughly enjoyed the trip: ‘It was great, we all made really good friends and they even invited us back over there for the summer!’

Margarita Mortimer added: “The Spanish students will have their chance to visit us at the end of June, let’s hope that they enjoy their experience as much as the Collyer’s students did. We all have our fingers crossed that our visitors will at least have a glimpse of the English sun!