Our American Exchange
During the October half term, we were fortunate enough to take part in an exchange with The Ellis School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We flew to Philadelphia airport and then took a conjoining flight to Pittsburgh airport where we were greeted by our host families and our exchanges Madeleine and Emma. While in Pittsburgh, we learnt that it is the home of Hersheys and Heinz, two world renowned brands. Pittsburgh also prides itself on its sports teams: the Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers and Penguins; the major baseball, football and ice hockey teams.
While we were in Pittsburgh, we attended a Steelers game and witnessed first-hand their enthusiasm for the sport. Pittsburgh, in recent years, has become a popular destination for shooting movies. These include: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Dark Night Rises, Avengers, The Fault in Our Stars, Abduction and many others. We spent our days immersing ourselves in American life and we attended our exchanges school: The Ellis school. They were extremely welcoming and made us feel so at home.
We learnt a lot about their school system and life (which is very different to life at Queen’s!). One major difference was that the only external exams they take are SATs at the age of 17-18, which are multiple choice. In lessons, they don’t work towards these exams, and take subjects simply to broaden their knowledge. One subject in particular was Global Leadership, which was a three hour lesson that everyone has to take. The aim of the subject is to teach about leadership skills and famous leaders. In addition, they had extensive sport and art facilities including a dark room for photography, clay facilities and a huge sports field and gym.
Sports are taken very seriously in American schools and we attended many of Madeleine’s soccer matches, which is a very popular sport for girls in America. While in Pittsburgh, we visited all of the main sites (and some less well known attractions).
We visited Falling Water, which is a beautiful house built over a waterfall designed by well-known architect Frank Lloyd Wright (who has designed many famous buildings, including the Guggenheim in New York). We also visited the Andy Warhol museum, the Phipps botanical gardens, we went on a duck tour, the incline and went to a cinema and shopping mall. Our highlight of the trip was visiting the strip, a popular shopping street in Pittsburgh.
We feel so fortunate to have been given this opportunity and are so looking forward to hosting our exchanges here in February and showing them all of the hidden treasures in London.
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We learnt a lot about their school system and life (which is very different to life at Queen’s!). One major difference was that the only external exams they take are SATs at the age of 17-18, which are multiple choice. In lessons, they don’t work towards these exams, and take subjects simply to broaden their knowledge. One subject in particular was Global Leadership, which was a three hour lesson that everyone has to take. The aim of the subject is to teach about leadership skills and famous leaders. In addition, they had extensive sport and art facilities including a dark room for photography, clay facilities and a huge sports field and gym.
Sports are taken very seriously in American schools and we attended many of Madeleine’s soccer matches, which is a very popular sport for girls in America. While in Pittsburgh, we visited all of the main sites (and some less well known attractions).
We visited Falling Water, which is a beautiful house built over a waterfall designed by well-known architect Frank Lloyd Wright (who has designed many famous buildings, including the Guggenheim in New York). We also visited the Andy Warhol museum, the Phipps botanical gardens, we went on a duck tour, the incline and went to a cinema and shopping mall. Our highlight of the trip was visiting the strip, a popular shopping street in Pittsburgh.
We feel so fortunate to have been given this opportunity and are so looking forward to hosting our exchanges here in February and showing them all of the hidden treasures in London.
Envision Her at Ellis
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