School Holiday Camp at inlingua Cheltenham

Twenty English lessons a week, taught in the mornings in groups formed by level. The teaching is aimed at students who are already living and studying in England on a longer school placement: the lessons consolidate the grammar they have been using without quite understanding it and the vocabulary they have absorbed at school but never practised. All levels are accepted. A private one-to-one tutor can be added to the week for a student preparing for an exam or catching up on a subject, at a price the school quotes on request.

The weekly package covers English tuition, four afternoon activities, two excursions, full-board homestay accommodation and all meals. The school publishes one gross weekly rate for this programme and does not publish separate package prices for longer stays. A week runs only if at least four students are enrolled, so the school asks families to confirm dates as early as possible and says it will tell them honestly if numbers are short.

Students stay in full-board homestay accommodation with a local host inspected by the school. Students who are already in Cheltenham on a longer school placement normally stay with the host family they are living with. The school does not publish the room type for its homestay places.

Full board is included: breakfast, a packed or hot lunch and an evening meal with the host family, every day of the stay.

Four afternoon activities a week, run by the school activity staff together with other international students — bowling, sport, arts and crafts, quizzes and indoor games. Two excursions a week go to destinations near Cheltenham: Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford, Bath, Bristol and the Cotswold villages. The pace is deliberately gentler than a summer programme, because this is a school holiday and the students have been working through a British school term.

Lessons are held at the school in Rodney Lodge, a Regency building in the centre of Cheltenham, with classrooms with interactive whiteboards, a student lounge where students spend their breaks, and a garden used for summer barbecues.

The camp exists because British schools close for around thirteen weeks a year and those weeks are not evenly spread: a student on a school placement of a term or two will meet at least one half term, and term breaks are not covered by the placement price. That leaves a family the choice of flying the child home or sending them here. The practical value is that the child is looked after in an English-speaking environment during a week when school is shut; the less obvious value is social, because a student on a term-long placement is usually the only international student in their year group, which is excellent for their English and occasionally lonely. There is no provision over Christmas, when the school and the host families close.