On the 10th July a group of 20 LEH girls and 20 Hampton School boys arrived at the Ellenrieder Gymnasium in the beautiful small town of Konstanz. After a short flight and coach journey we were eager, yet slightly nervous, to meet our exchange partners again, this time in their hometown. We all settled in very quickly thanks to their extremely kind welcomes, and soon got used to their early starts.

As well as greatly improving our German understanding and speaking, we also learnt a lot about their culture. While our exchange partners were in school we took part in a wonderful range of activities, including visiting Schaffhausen, the largest waterfall in Europe, Stuttgart, home to the state of the art Mercedes Benz museum, an activity centre and a water park.

A wonderful weekend was spent with our exchange partners' families, where we could see both the contrasts and the similarities between the two cultures. Overall everyone had a wonderful week and greatly improved their German. Many thanks to Mr. Tompsett, Mrs. Colclough and the staff from Hampton School for accompanying us.

Olivia Pugh, Lower Fifth