Prospectus
The Hamburg Cultural Exchange
German Students Visit The Downs School
This is the third year that the Downs School has run a cultural exchange with the Friedrich Ebert Gymnasium in Hamburg. The German students spent a week with us at the end of March and we are looking forward to a week in Hamburg at the end of June.
This year’s programme of events in England was voted “the best yet”. The German students had all tried their hand at a quiz about Oxford before they arrived, and so were looking forward to seeing all the sights they had read about, such as the view of Oxford from the top of St Mary’s Church and the prototype for Hogwart’s Dining Hall in Christchurch College. They also had an action packed day in London – the highlight of which was probably a trip on the London Eye. 
Then on the Sunday both English and German students piled into the minibus to head off to Bath, where they met up with some real Roman citizens at the Roman Baths.
Nearer to home the students experienced the thrill of a day at the races in Newbury and were lucky enough to visit Hungerford on Tutti Day – a colourful event when the Town Crier and other dignitaries parade in the streets. This was followed by an afternoon at Little Hidden Farm, learning, in a practical way, about running an organic farm.
For rest and relaxation we had an outing to the Basingstoke Aquadrome and to Headington Theatre to see a Youth production of Les Miserables – starring Elana, one of our own students.
All was rounded off with an excellent farewell dinner in East Ilsley, and many tears were shed as the students parted. In fact, the Hamburg students enjoyed their stay so much that they vowed they would do everything they could to make our stay in Hamburg equally enjoyable. They have been hard at work preparing an interesting sightseeing tour of Hamburg for our students, and have already compiled a quiz about Hamburg which they emailed over to us
