Newsletter Autumn 2004

It’s nearly Christmas and we are preparing for the celebrations.  We hope that you will have a very Happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year.

At the end of October we invited our host families to a party at the school to thank them for all their hard work for our students.  Some of our students were at the party as well and there was also a special exhibition of photographs and paintings by Ivor Chuter.

Next summer we will be organising sailing trips from Sovereign Harbour to Eastbourne Pier.  This is a great opportunity to learn the basic skills of sailing on the sea.  Our partners, Morgan Sailing, have lots of experience of organising sailing courses for students, both from UK and abroad.

Learning English takes place in the classroom... and outside. This term we have started to offer students free activities on Wednesday afternoons. These Active Learning sessions are fun and also help students to improve their English.

So far we have enjoyed a Yoga for Beginners lesson, an introduction to English Country Dancing, a Language Games afternoon and a Karate lesson led by our own Black Belt karate expert, teacher Graham Smith. Here's a picture of Aya and Lea practising their karate skills.

There are two new and exciting developments in the town of Eastbourne.

There are plans for a large new shopping mall to replace the Arndale Centre.  The station will be redeveloped and will include a new bus station.

Also, a new modern art gallery will be built next to the Congress Theatre to create a new culture centre.

Graham has been travelling again, this time to Estonia and Italy.  In Estonia he appeared on breakfast TV, telling viewers about Eastbourne School of English.  His visit to Italy was to meet representatives of the school in Rome.  This visit was organised by Quality English.

Staff News

Holly Nathan left in September to take up a teaching post in Italy.  Dean Holdsworth will be joining her there in January 2005.  We will miss Holly and Dean very much and wish them all the very best for their future life together.

Michael Nutt reports that he is enjoying looking after his son Simon who is now nearly one year old.  Michael will be on leave until September 2005.

Nick Morris and Lesley James have been working with us in the Autumn and we hope they will be joining us again in the Spring.  They have both been very popular with students and have made a great contribution to the school.

Dave Russell will be away for four months from January 2005.  He will be writing an English language teaching course book for an Italian publisher.  We wish Dave good luck with this project.

Christine Hale and Mark Hill have been planning our new garden design, planting bushes and bulbs.  We are all looking forward to enjoying the results of their work next summer.

All these plans will help to make Eastbourne an even more attractive place to visit for UK and overseas tourists.

Happy Christmas

from us all 

Graham, Dave, Glyn, Glynis, Louise, Roy, Keith, James, Rolf, Patsy, Christine, Gill, Mitch, Mark, Graham, Michael, Phil, Dean,  Ferage, Fleur.