Bristol: Catholic College welcomes Chinese exchange students

Staff and students at St Brendan's Sixth Form College welcomed a group of students from China last week, in the first exchange of its kind for the College. With an aim of providing more exciting international opportunities to both Chinese and St Brendan's students, the exchange is the beginning of a new partnership between the two schools, which lie over 5500 miles apart.

The group of students, along with one teacher, travelled from Yunnan Hengshui School in Kunming and spent five days as either a St Brendan's teacher or student at the large post-16 College. Each visitor was welcomed to the St Brendan's community and experienced academic classes in Maths, Biology, Chemistry and English, and took part in a range of enrichment activities. During the visit, teacher Chen Fang also held a beginners class in Mandarin for the Bristol students.

On the final day of their exchange, the Chinese visitors were treated to a showcase by talented A-level Performing Arts students at St Brendan's. This included drama extracts from the A-level Drama & Theatre studies students, music from the BTEC Level 3 Music Performing students and excerpts from Bugsy Malone by the Level 3 BTEC Performing Arts students. The group of students are busy rehearsing the popular musical, which will be the St Brendan's March production and is open to the public, as well as teachers and students.

During the visit, a 'Going China' themed evening event also took place, in which St Brendan's students and parents were presented with exciting details of study and work opportunities in China, as well as summer programmes and joint degrees.

Katherine Swainson, International Development Manager at St Brendan's said: "I am extremely pleased that our first ever exchange visit has been such a success, made so special by the warm welcome and support of students and staff across the whole College. With the help of our new partners in China, we hope this will be just the beginning of our international exchange activities."

For more information about St Brendan's Sixth Form College, see: www.stbrn.ac.uk/