Exchange with King's School
Dominque Scott

My first contact with King's Boys was at the London-Gatwick airport. The King's 1st hockey team asked me to join them on their pre-season tour to Malta. I could not believe that I was going on a tour with fifteen complete strangers for a week but something in me felt like it would be exciting for both the boys and I. I was very thankful for the advantage of meeting King's Pupils before the term even started.

The tour itself was a success for me because I made cognisance with all the boys and it was beneficial for the school because we comfortably won all our games. I felt that the boys created an atmosphere, which was easy for me to fit into, and they made every effort to include me in all that they did. They were very welcoming towards me. The Malta tour was another opportunity in which I was able to see another different culture and country. Malta is an island south of Italy. There is an abundance of very old and modern buildings. All the latest buildings are hotels and casinos but the rest of the buildings in Malta are very old and are all made of stone. There are many tourists that visit Malta because it is so rich in history. Archaeologists date some buildings to the year 5200bc.

We arrived at King's on the 6th of January. The first aspect of King's that hit was the fact that I was going to be living in a school and buildings that were aged around 1500 years, which makes it the oldest school in the world. The walls were not even vertical! If boys walked around upstairs, you would think the ceiling was about to collapse on you. All the electrical and plumbing works were on the inside of the walls, which meant that hot water pipes ran through my room. Later in the term, I was very grateful that they were there because they kept me warm during the frightfully cold winter. I felt like I was experiencing what thousands of boys before me had because nothing really changed, with the history of King's in mind it made me feel that the school was so much more than it seemed on the surface.

King's School Canterbury is situated in the heart of the Canterbury city, which is in the county Kent. All of the buildings that King's uses belong to the Church of England and that is why the school is on the same property as the cathedral and has such expensive school fees because the buildings are rented out to the school. Since King's was in the middle of the Canterbury city it was very easy for pupils to go the shops and buy any needed goods. The “all you can eat for 3,50” lunch at Pizza Hut was taken advantage of by many pupils.

The daily routine at King's is a very relaxed one. The average pupil would wake up at around quarter to eight, have breakfast in the school dining hall, and then go to the daily eight thirty assembly. Class ran from five to nine till ten past one. A short break of twenty minutes was given at eleven. The classes are thirty-five minutes long which is effective for the pupils because any longer would bore them. A pupil had two teachers per subject. The reason for this is so that a pupil can learn to adapt to different teaching styles and that he/she can complete the syllabus quicker because each teacher deals with a different section of it. Sport would go on from two thirty to four. Sport at King's was not as competitive as it is at Hilton, the boys, girls played sport for the sheer enjoyment, and there was no real desire to compete at the highest level. Then from quarter to five to six, there were two classes and diner was open from six to seven thirty. There was one prep session and it went from seven thirty to quarter past nine. Every pupil has their own study where they work and sleep.
The pupils are not checked up on during prep. It is up to them to make the conscious decision whether they want to complete their homework or not. I find that this approach is very effective because it teaches pupils that they are the only ones who can make a difference in their life and that teachers are only there to guide them, not spoon-feed them. Consequently, pupils produce a higher quality of work because it is what they want to do. There will always be the minority and they are punished but also encouraged to do their work because the work they are doing are the stepping-stones to their life out of school. Bedtime is at ten for the lower three years and eleven for the upper two.

The teaching at King's was at first somewhat hard to get a grip on. It did not just test my knowledge on the subject but also on life and worldwide issues. French for example; during the term, we discussed about nutrition, smoking, obesity, pre-marital sex, the importance of culture, as well as many more aspects of life and this way of teaching is essential. The teaching is at a personal level, which means that pupils get a better understanding of teachers and therefore it teaches them to think of things in other people’s perspectives and this is a very significant life skill. The teaching at King's has given me a better understanding of what it is like sharing ideas and beliefs with each other and acknowledging other peoples points of views.

There was a strong sense of camaraderie within boys and teachers. They become very passionate about King's in all aspects but especially in academics and music. There are many traditions at King's but the most notable one was the school uniform: the boys wear pinstriped trousers and a winged collar with a black tie and the girls wore a pinstriped skirt with a broach on their white shirts. There was a man who was called “the beadle”, it was his job to inspect pupils as they walked around the school and if they were not up too scratch, he would give them a 4 o’clock detention where he would teach them how to wear their clothes and polish their shoes. Another tradition was that every Sunday all the boarders at King's would attend the 9 o’clock mass. This was an extremely exhilarating experience for me. The cathedral, had been through three different types of Gothic architecture, both World Wars where the Germans tried to bomb it and the constant corrosion of the lime rock (which is what the cathedral is made of) from the rain.

My impression is that both teachers and parents treat pupils at King's like adults because it is ultimately, what they are going to become. This is certainly the best attribute, which I think King's has and I think that every high school should have this attribute. It forges pupils’ future into the world and prepares them for life. This type of lifestyle has encouraged pupils to talk about more than just the normal chitchat but engage into complex topics like politics and religion. This type of influence from teachers and parents ensures that pupils do not get a fright when they actually see what the “real world” has installed for them. Pupils in standard nine and Matric are allowed two units of alcohol, which is the equivalent to two pints of beer, every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at the school pub which is run by the teachers. This process slowly merges pupils into the drinking of alcohol. This rule is very productive because it teaches pupils that alcohol is not a necessity to having a good time. This reduces pupils from binge drinking which is definitely a worldwide problem. One might think that pupils would take advantage of teachers but they do not. They return the respect to the teachers and therefore turn a pupil-teacher relationship into a friendship.

By now, you probably know that King's is a co-educational school and has been for the past twenty odd years. Interaction with the opposite sex at King's was a shock for me. I had been around boys for the past three years and suddenly being with girls made me very conscious of what they thought of me. As time went on I became more relaxed and definitely more myself around girls. The atmosphere in class is nothing different to what one expects from a normal class, everyone behaves and learns. Girls schooling at King's makes boys more in touch with their emotional side, which creates a better relationship between the sexes because they can relate to each other. This school environment is very natural and is an imitation of the world after school. I think that boys and girls become more rounded people because they are exposed to other views on life, which widens their outlook on life. Co-educational schooling also helps to develop social skills with the opposite sex, which is crucial for a well-balanced person.

These three months that I have spent at King's have broadened my stance on life. I have seen a completely diverse way of living and I hope that I can bring back all of its positives and introduce them to Hilton. I have made life long friends, which I will keep in contact with and hopefully see them in the near future. I have matured and grown as a person due to the fact that I was involved in the exchange programme. If it were not for the exchange programme, I would not have been influenced and touched by a different culture, which has exposed me to the realities of life in the real world. Going on exchange is a life changing experience where nothing can be lost and I urge all possible candidates to give it there all because they have nothing to fear and everything to gain. I thank the school for giving me the privilege of going on exchange.