Gold Edition Summer Camp Oxford-Thornton

The camp runs a General English course of twenty-three lessons a week, taught in the mornings in classes of no more than ten students. Levels run from beginner to proficient. Students are usually placed before they arrive, or by a placement test on site, with the allocation based on the test result and the student's age; a move to another level can be made at any point during the stay. Lessons cover grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening and reading comprehension, with grammar consolidated through written work. Because classes are held only in the mornings, the whole afternoon and evening stay free for the activity and excursion programme.

Everything the provider lists for this centre is bundled into a single weekly price: tuition, accommodation on campus, three hot meals a day, the daily activity programme and the excursions, including entrance fees. Stays run from one to six weeks. Arrivals and departures are always on a Sunday, and arriving later in the week may mean missing lessons or programme points. A one-off enrolment fee applies to every booking at the Gold Edition centres and is charged on top of the weekly rate. A scheduled airport transfer between London Heathrow and the campus can be added for a fee per person each way. Optional extra tuition unrelated to the language course, such as a tennis course, is bookable separately.

Students live in boarding houses on the college campus, a short walk from both the classrooms and the dining hall. There is a choice of single or shared rooms. Shared rooms sleep three, six or eight students; most rooms have a wash basin, some are en-suite, and modern shared toilets and showers are located just outside the rooms. The bedrooms are unusually spacious for a boarding campus. A refundable damage deposit and a refundable key charge are payable on arrival and returned on departure.

Three hot meals a day are served in the dining room opposite the accommodation building, freshly prepared each day. Breakfast is continental and also includes bacon, eggs and sausages. Lunch is a three-course meal with starter, main and dessert; dinner is two courses. Students choose from three different hot dishes that change daily, and a vegetarian option is always available. A packed lunch is provided on full-day excursions, and barbecues are set up around the swimming pool in summer. Students who need a special diet are charged a small supplement per night.

Afternoons and evenings are filled with a set programme of sport and entertainment: a welcome party, orienteering, tennis, football and cricket, a mini-Olympics and a swimming competition, talent shows, disco, karaoke, film and quiz nights, and a farewell party. Every two-week stay includes six excursions, three full-day and three half-day, among them London, Windsor, Bath and Stratford-upon-Avon, plus regular visits into Oxford city centre. The London day includes a boat trip on the River Thames, which the provider offers only on this trip.

The camp uses the full college campus, a self-contained estate of some twenty-five acres surrounded by forests, meadows and a river. Teaching takes place in modern classrooms with interactive whiteboards. Students also have a large sports hall, a theatre, a library, a computer room, a private chapel, a dining room and a small cafe. Outdoors there is a heated swimming pool, grass and Astroturf football pitches, tennis courts, an athletics track, a cricket pitch and further sports fields. Common rooms are spacious and Wi-Fi covers the whole campus.

Oxford-Thornton is the provider's premium option: a traditional English boarding school setting built around a former fourteenth-century manor house, with the feel of a storybook campus and modern teaching facilities behind it. The site sits outside the city centres, is fully enclosed and has a round-the-clock security service. Oxford, with its universities and spires, is a short trip away, and London, Windsor, Cambridge and Stratford-upon-Avon are all within easy reach. Classes are small, everything is included in the price and the days are structured from breakfast to the evening activity.