11 January 2016 (TES)
Parents should consider sending their child on a school foreign exchange rather than spending money on a week in Majorca, a headteacher has suggested.
Young people are likely to learn more on a cultural break in a city such as Madrid or Barcelona than they are sitting on a beach, according to Caroline Jordan, headmistress of Headington School in Oxford and the new president of the Girls’ Schools Association.
Setting up a foreign exchange for students did not have to be expensive, Ms Jordan said.
“It’s trying to convince the parents that that’s good use of their finances as opposed to a foreign holiday to Majorca, where they may well be in a Spanish environment but they’re less likely to be experiencing Spanish as they would be if they were in somewhere like Madrid or Barcelona on exchange,” she said.
“Exchange is very important and we know that languages is a real area of concern in this country. The government is doing quite a lot about this by trying to encourage all children to take a language through the English Baccalaureate.”
