Summer English course at the University of Essex, Colchester, with St Andrew's College

General English for ages 8 to 18: fifteen hours a week, in lessons of 1 hour 30 minutes with breaks scheduled between them. Six levels are taught on the CEFR scale, from A1+ to C1+, and the class to student ratio is one to eighteen. The entry test comes in two parts - the first is done online at home, the second on the first day of classes. Teachers hold a teaching certificate, and every member of staff signs a declaration form and is checked with a disclosure and two references.

The Classic Programme is quoted per stay - one price for a fourteen-night stay and one for a seven-night stay; the amounts are in the price list on this page. The price covers tuition, campus accommodation, full board, the activity programme and three full-day excursions a week, with entry to King's College Cambridge, a Thames river cruise and Colchester Castle included. The centre runs three two-week terms across the summer. Gold and Platinum are offered as alternatives to the Classic Programme, and at this centre the school prices them as full programmes rather than as supplements. A refundable damage deposit is taken for the stay and returned at the end of it; airport transfers are priced separately and are not part of the package.

Students live in the South Courts halls, a five-minute walk from the main campus, in single en-suite bedrooms, in flats of four to fourteen people. Kitchens are not accessible to students and no appliances or utensils are provided; towels are not provided either, so students bring their own, while linen is provided and rooms are cleaned before arrival and weekly after that. The halls have free wifi, twenty-four-hour security, CCTV and secure access entry systems, and a welfare manager, welfare coordinators and campus security are on site.

Full board on campus, served in the university canteens, each with its own menu: breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. On each full-day excursion students are given a packed lunch instead of lunch on site.

Evening activities run every day between eight and ten in the evening, and the campus is built for sport: basketball and volleyball courts, a dance studio, an astroturf pitch, grass pitches, tennis courts and ping-pong tables are all on site, with a sports centre and sports halls. Three full-day excursions a week are part of the Classic Programme, and entry to King's College Cambridge, a Thames river cruise and Colchester Castle is included. Colchester, the first city and capital of Roman Britain, is two miles away with bus links from campus, and London is about two hours to the southwest.

The centre sits on the University of Essex's Colchester campus, two hundred acres of parkland on the city's outskirts - roughly the size of a hundred and twenty football pitches - with a lake, gardens and squares, and a self-contained, village-like feel. On campus: classrooms, the South Courts residence, several canteens each with its own menu, a student centre, sports centre and sports halls, basketball and volleyball courts, a dance studio, astroturf, grass pitches, tennis courts and ping-pong tables, laundry, free wifi on the main campus and in the accommodation, computer access, coffee shops, a convenience store, a cash machine, a post office and a safe box in the office. There is no swimming pool access and no games console room; the kitchens in the halls are not accessible to students.

A green, self-contained campus on the edge of Colchester, with the city two miles away by bus and London about two hours to the southwest. The campus has a lake, fountains, gardens and squares, and the student centre and sports facilities sit a short walk from the halls. Eight hundred students at a time, all in single en-suite rooms, with a centre manager, welfare manager, excursion and activity managers and welfare coordinators on site around the clock.