Academy Eye

This school year Northampton Academy welcomed three exchange students from Denmark, Italy and Germany, which gave all of us the opportunity of studying A-level for a year. 

We foreign students arrived with the same aims in mind; to improve our English and become more comfortable speaking the language, to try to see as many landmarks in the history as possible as well as all other significant sights, and to get a real in-depth experience in the British culture.   

The Academy achieved a gold star standard in helping us to settle in, while at the same time keeping track of all the new 6^th formers, which shows how organised the staff on the school have been from the very beginning of the year. Other students who have been attending the Academy for several years but also come from other parts of the world have expressed that the Academy is very good at welcoming new students in comparison to other schools these students previously attended. Apparently the other schools have not had the same friendly and helpful teachers and students as the Academy has.     

All three of us have notice a great curiosity towards us from both students and teachers about the culture we come from and why and how we got the idea of taking a year aboard. And the most popular, if we are here with our family, and no, we are here on our own staying with English families who have opened their homes and hearts for us. It, of course, is hard and very brave to jump out in the big world all alone, leaving friends and family back at home, but it is also very exciting and much fun especially when you meet some great people on the way. 

It is without exception we on the very first day realized big dissimilarity from our school back home in Denmark, Germany or Italy to the Academy.

In general the whole school system is something completely different; just take the grading system and the fact that none of us have ever been on a school where there is a rule for school uniform.  In the meantime, all these differences have not made us regret our decision on coming to England. We have no regrets but simply live with the saying “it is not wrong it is just different,” and remembering it is all for a better future.