Day 2: First Day of School in London

Today we woke up fresh and ready for Saint John Bosco College and our first day in a British school!
Here is what happened:

Morning

We woke up at 6:30 a.m. Sara had a hard time getting out of her sleeping bag, but once we were up we were not so tired because we were excited for the new adventure. We had breakfast together at 7:30 and we left the house at 8:00. When we arrived at the College, we met our tutors. Some of them were Italian though they live and go to school in London. What a surprise! With them, we toured the school, which is much bigger than ours. It is like schools in films with different classrooms for each subject. There are three floors and garden, or schoolyard. The gym is enormous, and on the second floor there is a small chapel where students can assemble. We gathered there for a morning prayer. 

After the tour we followed our tutors to their first lesson. We had a lot of fun because some of the students were especially welcoming. 

Early breakfast together. We are ready for school!

Arrival to Saint John Bosco College, checking in!

We are greeted by Gaia, who tells us about the day ahead.

Camilla gave us a tour, and we finished our tour in the Chapel with a prayer.

Some of us had physical education for our first lesson.

In the morning, students take a short break and get fresh air. We took the opportunity to talk to our mentor, Daniel.

Cecilia and Sveva's mentor introduced them to her friends, who are learning Italian!

After break, we learned about the EAL (English as an Additional Language) program; more then 50% of the students at the College have English as their second language, like us.

Afternoon

When we arrived at the school canteen, we were super surprised that there were a lot of people there already. At lunch we met a lot of new friends and we had a lot of interesting conversations about the school, and life in London.  For example, we learned that the school is divided into four houses, and each house has a captain. They have something called "form class" where students have fun quizzes and time to talk and laugh. At lunch, one thing that we noticed is that London in full of different cultures. 

After lunch we spilt into our groups for lessons. One group went to the music class. They played the piano. They learned to play songs from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter. Cecilia played Star Wars for the class, and Manuele and Alessio talked to the music teacher. Another group went to Physics class. They spoke about the force of gravity. For some of us, it was our first time learning physics. For The last hour all of the high school students had Spanish together, and it was so funny that the teacher was Italian! We can't wait to see the students again tomorrow. 

We had to line up for lunch and find seats, luckily our mentor Ivan showed us the way.

Louis and Daniel have lunch with our high school students in the cafeteria.

Manuele and Sveva follow along brilliantly in Math.

Students enjoying time to play the keyboard in Music class. Cecilia even had a solo performance!

Evening

After school we went for a walk around Battersea, and we bought some snacks at the supermarket. We also saw Albert Bridge and took some photos there. Fortunately, it was sunny and windy; in fact with this good weather we had the possibility to enjoy our walk. After that, we came back home and we were given an hour to rest. We also celebrated a beautiful mass using Shakespeare's words in the chapel. Finally, we ate dinner which we prepared together at the Salesian House.

Today was a wonderful day full of new experiences and emotions. We discovered that the British school system is different from the Italian school system. In fact, you have to change classes after each lesson while in Italy you have to stay in the same class for the whole day. Our mentors were very kind and friendly. Some were very helpful because they could translate to us if we didn't understand. It was inspiring to see Italian students succeeding in an English school.

We enjoyed a walk in the neighborhood, Battersea.