A year in the south of England

Here is the latest in our series written by our pupils who have returned from spending a year abroad. Here, Soledad (3ºESO) tells us all about her time near Bath, in the south of England.

Last year I went to study abroad. I went to the United Kingdom, to the south of England. It was a school called Warminster, in the town of the same name, near the city of Bath. I lived in the school, as a boarder.

The school was really big; all the different subjects, dining halls, boarding houses and speech rooms had their own entire building with many classrooms in some cases. There were five boarding houses: two for older boys, one for younger boys, one for older girls and one for younger girls. I lived in the one for the younger girls but I was one of the oldest in the house.

On school days we woke up at 7am, got dressed into our uniforms and walked to the dining hall to have breakfast. Then we came back, packed our bags and went to school. We got registered and sent to lessons. We had one lesson and a break, two lessons after and then lunch break from 1pm to 2.15pm. Then we got registered again and had two more lessons with a break in the middle before finishing school at 5 o'clock. When we got back to the house we got changed into normal clothes, which we called 'mufti', and went to have supper. Then we came back, got registered again, and had to do homework, which we called 'prep', and had free time that we normally used to cook or watch movies. We went to sleep at half past nine.

On weekends, we woke up at 8am on Saturdays, did prep and played sport matches against other schools, and then went to town to buy things and hang out in the different shops. It was small but we enjoyed town. Then we had a free evening. We didn't have a fixed bedtime. On Sundays we woke up at 9am, went to church and had lunch. Then we usually had trips, for example to the cinema, and a free evening again. 

I really liked my year there because I made a lot of friends and got very good grades too. The food was great as well. The lessons were different and I liked them a lot. Also, boarding was great, it was like a pyjama party every day! The only thing I didn't like was coming to Spain so often because I don't enjoy packing suitcases and bags!