King William's College
Jonathan Gilbert

Gazing down from the plane upon the small rock that is known as the Isle of Man, I could not wait for the three moths ahead of me. I was to call this place home for the next three months of my life, and I was thrilled to get going!

I arrived at the only airport in the Isle of Man to be greeted by the head boy who had come to pick me up in his car. This in itself was a peculiar thing for me until I was informed that the legal driving age on the island was a mere 16… and that there was no speed limit outside the towns. This was to cause some quite interesting moments later on during my time on the island as we screeched around corners at 160km/h with someone younger than me at the wheel, luckily I only told my mum these stories after I got back. However, in my three months on the island, I did not go anywhere without a seatbelt as everyone is absolutely adamant that they will not drive until everyone in the car has a seatbelt on.

While I was there I attended King Williams College, the only private school on the island. It was also co-ed which was a great change from what I was used to at Hilton. I arrived in the bitter cold while my mates back at Hilton were enjoying temperatures of around 30°c. Upon arriving at the school I was introduced to my house master who turned out to be an ex-South African, he was to be my constant supply of biltong (which he made) over the next few months. I was then showed to my room which turned out to be a rather large two man study which I would be sharing with a German Boy.

The boarding establishment was not unlike the houses at Hilton. The junior boys had dorm consisting of around 8 people, while the seniors were either in double or single man studies. There was a common room, which held things such as pool table, foos ball vending, machine etc. There was then a sixth form common room which is equivalent to our matric common room. This held thing such as TV, play station, DVD player etc. I was lucky enough to go into the lower sixth, which is equivalent to our form four. We were treated as matrics as the last two years are viewed as equals. The girls stayed in a different house to us and all in all there were about 70 boarder’s altogether.

The school itself was very compact, consisting of three and sometimes four stories. It was built of very old heavy stone and looked more like something from a Harry Potter book than a school. The grounds were not even comparable to Hiltons, consisting of around 6 Hockey/rugby/cricket fields; it also had an Astroturf which is surprisingly where most of my rugby practices took place due to its floodlight capabilities.

The school is situated just outside a small town called Castletown and once a week I would take the fifteen minute walk to the supermarket to stock up on food, drink and toiletries. To begin with I spent a good 35minutes in the store just searching for something that shared its price to something I could buy in South Africa; this was a pointless operation however. After a few trips however I new about the cheapest things in the store and I my time in the store was cut down to about 10min. These things were still far more expensive than the prices in South Africa.

The actual class structure was also something completely different to me. For starters it was run more like a university than a school as you were not forced to work at all but it was your responsibility to decide whether you wanted to pass or fail. We had 9 lessons of 40 minutes each day and, with a 1:30min lunch break meant that we finished class at 4:15 every day. At this time of the day, due to the wonderful English/Irish weather, it was pitch black. After 3 months of not seeing the sun (as it set at about 3:30) I was more than happy to get back to sunny SA which I realised I had taken for granted.

Sport was another factor that was run completely differently to what I am used to in SA. No sport was compulsory and all sports were played merely for enjoyment. I was lucky enough to play for the 1st team rugby who were a relatively good side considering how many opts they had. As there were no schools on the island that could compete with the King Williams, we played all of our away matches in Wales or England. These trips were great and normally consisted of us playing a game on Saturday and then one on Sunday. During these tours I came up against some extremely good players but none of the teams that we played against except maybe one or two could even compare to the standard of school boy rugby in South Africa.

And just to conclude…exchange has defiantly been an eye opener to how different cultures around the world differ from ours. Over there things are very relaxed and laid back and it was great to get away from Hiltons strict routine for tree months just to see how things ran! Although there may be a few advantages of having this freedom, it is clear to me now that the facilities, opportunities and discipline that Hilton has to offer defiantly equip boys with something extra. It was great for three months but I would never dream of attending a school such as King Williams College for the rest of my schooling career.