In addition to our Junior course (ages 8-12), our Senior course is now available for ages 13-17, extending the maximum age from 16 due to demand. We are tailoring this Senior course to make it more suitable for our older students, with more academic, mature English lesson content to prepare our students for the global community they are soon to enter. They will be introduced to new topics such as applying for a UK university, practicing interviews for English-speaking jobs, planning their own events and contributing to Sedbergh International’s social media presence. In addition to lesson content, we are also making changes to our activities and excursions programme.

Afternoon activities

These will now be divided into Juniors and Seniors, so that our activities can be better tailored to each groups’ needs and abilities. Seniors will be able to spend more time with their own age group and activities can be more challenging and help them improve skills at a faster rate.

We are introducing Senior-only activities such as an optional running club (staff permitting), book club (staff permitting), rugby and cricket at a more advanced level than in previous years, as well as our new activities, yoga and meditation. 

Evening activities

Some new evening activities for the whole school to enjoy are being brought in, such as pizza night, film club, lip sync battle, murder mystery, garden and tea parties, as well as a roller disco.

Excursions

Some excursions have been specifically selected for our Senior students only, such as the Dungeons experience in York and an interactive tour of Media City UK, where much of Britain’s TV shows are created. New whole-school excursions such as British Music Experience will make an exciting change to our excursion programme. In addition, Seniors will be given more shopping time during excursions than Juniors, as our student feedback has reflected this was an area they wanted to see improved.

Free time

Seniors will also be given more freedom during their free time. As our Casterton campus is a small and secure environment, Seniors who are not enjoying off-site activities such as indoor climbing will be able to sign out of their boarding house during free time and go to the nearby shop or conduct their own activities such as football on the school grounds. Staff supervision will be maintained, and a roll call will be taken before dinner time to ensure all students have returned safely. This additional freedom will help Seniors develop their responsibility and prepare them for future learning experiences such as Erasmus and university.

We look forward to seeing how our Senior students respond to these new challenges!