The Grammar School at Leeds' BLOG

ESRI’s sponsorship for GSAL’s expert input continues

We’re really excited that ESRI UK Ltd have agreed to continue to sponsor The Grammar School at Leeds in return for expert input from our teachers. Thanks ESRI!

ESRI, who specialise in geographic information systems, have been working alongside our teachers for a number of years now in order to find the optimum way for schools to use their highly sophisticated mapping software.

Over the years we’ve developed innovative ways to use the software in the classroom in subjects as diverse as Biology and History. We’ve plotted the rise and spread of the Black Death in History as well as contemporary earthquakes in Geography. You can see two of our pupils - Holly and Matthew - using the software in this video on ESRI’s website: http://www.esriuk.com/schools/podcasts/ArcView_in_use/

ESRI UK Ltd now have their own education department, dedicated to working with schools, but nevertheless they’ve decided they value our expertise so much that they want to keep us on the team. We’re really excited to see where we can take the project in the coming months.

DON’T FORGET SUMMER FUN DAY!

SUMMER FUN DAY, this Saturday 13 June 2009

11am - 2pm at Alwoodley Gates

A great day out for all the family -  

Go Karts, Bouncy Castle, lots of stalls and prizes as well as fancy dress competition for Rose Court children.

Whatever the weather come and have fun!

COMPANIES THAT HAVE DONATED PRIZES FOR THE RAFFLE…

The PFA would like to that the following companies that have been very generous in donating prizes for the Raffle at the Junior School Fun Day on 13 June 2009:

Hair and Beauty

Alcina Advance Beauty, Angel Rooms, 203 Broadgate Lane, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 5BS (£60 voucher)

Angels of London, 73 Street Lane, Leeds LS8 1AP (GHD Hair Straighteners)

Hair Studio, 64a Otley Road, Headingley, Leeds LS6 4BA (£60 voucher)

Lotus Ayurveda Spa, Unit 452, Thorp Arch Trading Estate, Wetherby LS23 7BJ (Voucher for treatments)

Metzz, 3 The Avenue, Alwoodley, Leeds LS17 7BD (Set of Gel Toes and Full Body Spray Tan)

Pretty Woman, 625 Roundhay Road, Oakwood, Leeds LS8 4AR (3 separate vouchers for treatments)

Other Prizes

Agent Jewellery, 16 Thornton’s Arcade, Leeds LS1 6LQ (Pair of Earrings)

Booshu Children’s Shoes, 714 King Lane, Leeds LS17 7BB (£50 voucher)

Collections, 141 The Avenue, Alwoodley, Leeds LS17 7PA (Cashmere Scarf)

Harry Ramsden’s, Otley Road, Guisley, Leeds LS20 8LZ (£20 voucher)

Johnson’s Family Karate, 33 Nightingale Drive, Harrogate, HG1 4NJ (Karate T-Shirt)

Starbucks, 56 Street Lane, Leeds LS8 1AP (Goody Bag)

Unilever UK, Coal Road, Scarcroft, Leeds LS14 2AR (Goody Bag)

Family Tickets

Castle Howard, York YO60 7DA

Eden Camp, Malton YO17 6RT

Harewood House, Harewood, Leeds LS17 9LQ

Magna Centre, Sheffield Road, Templeborough, Rotherham C60 1DX

Newby Hall, Ripon HG4 5AE

Thackray Museum, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7LN

The Deep, Hull HU1 4DP

Yorkshire Air Museum, Halifax Way, Elvington, York YO41 4AU

Other Tickets

Crazy Tykes, Unit 650, Thorp Arch Trading Estate, Wetherby LS23 7BJ (5 visit ticket)

Esporta, Cookridge Lane, Cookridge, Leeds LS16 8LW (1 guest pass)

Leeds Rugby, Headingley Stadium, St Michaels Lane, Leeds LS6 3BR (2 tickets for Leeds Rhinos game and 2 tickets for Leeds Carnegie game)

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Quarry Hill, Leeds LS2 7UP (2 tickets)

Global Schools’ Partnership Plan -teacher exchange to Malawi, May 2009

Malawi May 2009

   Deputy Head of English Judith Kerr’s account of her trip to Malawi with Deputy Head of Biology, Andy Shaw, sponsored by DFID, as part of the Global Schools’ Partnership Plan.

Andy Shaw and I spent a week during our summer half term holiday at Kamuzu Academy in Malawi, Andy working with the Biology department and I was with the English department. This is my second trip to the country and Andy’s sixth visit. Both of us felt that it was good to be back in the ‘warm heart of Africa.’

We arrived somewhat bleary eyed after the overnight flight from Heathrow to Nairobi and then onto Lilongwe. From there we drove along the M1 road ( its name indicating that it is straight and covered in tarma) to the Academy,stopping en route to buy enormous cabbages from sellers at the side of the road, bartering for the best price.  We visited Kasungu hospital to take photographs of the wards which GSAL students will decorate when they are on their three week visit in July. I was told that the hospital was quiet, yet every bed was taken and each was surrounded by relatives who were feeding their children, or were just there to support them. Outside under a rush canopy mothers were queuing up to have their babies weighed.

The weekend was spent at Luwawa Forest Lodge, which is situated amongst a pine forest, planted originally in the 1950s, searching for giant lobelia plants whilst being observed from the safe height of the trees by curious monkeys.  We took a walk with a guide to observe the indigenous plants, spotting a manmade insect trap, left to capture insects, which when fried, supplement the diet of nsima, a semolina-like porridge made from maize served with a relish, which is the staple diet of most Malawians.

 The next day we were driven along a dirt road, complete with overgrown foliage at the edges, ruts and potholes caused from the recent rains, towards a waterfall. Stopping the car, we scrambled down a steep slope and crossed a river by means of a rung-less ladder which was stretched above the flowing water, using overhanging branches as hand holds. When we reached the waterfalls we were greeted with a torrent of water tumbling from a rocky precipice. It was a stunning sight and well worth the steep walk.  Andy was pleased too as we found lobelias of over 4 m high. It is hard to believe that these giants are related to the tiny bedding plants we use in the UK.

One of my objectives of the trip was to teach in Mbonekera village school. This village is part of GSAL’s comparative village project. I first visited  Mbonekera school two years ago and organized the Big Bake for Malawi events to help, which have funded the school’s netball and football strips as well as some books.  When I went to the school in 2007, it was in the process of being built, although lessons were still taking place, amongst the piles of brick and rubble. There were 400 children then and only four books. Richard Hewitt, a Classics teacher from Kamuzu Academy, has worked hard to help the village raise money to build the school. Mbonekera School now has 700 children, aged from six years old to nineteen, who are taught in eight classrooms. They also have a library, with books provided by The Grammar School at Leeds. There are however, only 4 teachers and two GAP year students. I was delighted to see a number of LGHS green jumpers and black watch tartan skirts being worn and Rose Court green book bags being carried. I took four more big bags of clothes with me, including some former LGS jumpers. It’s winter in Malawi at the moment, which means that although the days are warm and sunny like UK summers at their best, the people feel that they are cold, so they appreciate sweaters. Because there is a large diurnal range, the nights are much colder and it gets dark by about 6pm. I arrived at Mbonekera in time for assembly at 7.30am. All the children lined up in rows and chorused “Good morning. How are you? ”to the headmaster and to me. When I asked them how they were, the reply came in perfect unison, “We are fine, thank you.”  They also sang the Malawi National Anthem in English. I was amused when the headmaster asked the children to tuck their shirts and tee-shirts in. Some rules are the same the world over!

I was thrilled to be invited to teach English comprehension and grammar to standard 8 and standard 5 children at Mbonekera School.  Texts books are still in short supply so the classes are taught in groups with one book per group of about six or seven. It must be hard to read in a language which is not your mother tongue from a book which you cannot see properly. But no-one complained. The students mostly learn by rote. When I asked each group to read a paragraph out loud they read it in a very rhythmical lilting way with a good level of accuracy of pronunciation. I noticed a lot of the text books contained passages with strong educational messages, so that they are not only learning English but are learning about the dangers of flies, mosquitoes and AIDS.  The children each had exercise books and a biro and they had benches and tables to sit at, which GSAL has helped to provide by organising fund raising activities. The teacher’s only aids are some very dusty chalk to use and a blackboard painted onto a wall.  The children were very proud of their books and asked me to mark them, which I was most happy to do.

At the end of the morning the students were fed porridge from the feeding station which is still in the process of being constructed outside and I sat in the headmaster’s tiny house, eating fresh groundnuts dug from his garden.  I pinched myself to check that this was really happening. What an amazing privilege!

The next day saw me teaching all day at Kamuzu Academy; one of the English teachers was off sick, so I volunteered to step in and had a wonderful day teaching two year 7 classes, a year 8 form, a double year 9 class and a GCSE set. It was interesting to teach ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold to the GCSE class who had never seen the sea but having visited Lake Malawi on my previous trip, I was able to draw some parallels with it about the waves. I explained that the distance between the coast of France and Dover is about as far as from KA to the nearest town of Kasungu. The classes were all very responsive and extremely well behaved, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I gave the year 7 children the letters the GSAL year 7 boys and girls had written to them and they wrote back. I brought these letters home with me for the GSAL students, so a pen friend link has been established between the two schools.

 KA is a private boarding grammar school, founded by the country’s first president, President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, after the country became independent and is known as the ‘Eton of Africa’. Half of the children here are quite wealthy but the government also sponsors the top boy and the top girl from each village school, so the students come from a divergent background. The school has recently received The Princess Diana award with twenty-nine students receiving individual awards for the worldwide Shakespeare event, ‘Shakespeare 24’, in which 24 time zones in the world put on a Shakespeare play in 24 hours. This award is given in recognition of the compassion and commitment of the school to improve the lives of others. The members of Kamuzu Academy Dramatic Society (KADS) volunteered to put on a Shakespeare play to mark the 444^th birthday of the Bard last year to a predominantly Malawian audience.

The rest of the week was taken up with more lessons and discussions with our colleagues in our partner departments, exchanging ideas about teaching methods and materials and developing our Global Curricular links.  We also went to Lilongwe, the administrative capital of the country, visiting the animal sanctuary to see wild animals which have been rescued and which are now housed in spacious, safe and natural environments. I was thrilled to see a leopard and a lion as well as a huge variety of different monkeys and baboons. I even viewed a crocodile and a python but kept a safe distance! 

Mr. Frank Cooke headmaster of Kamuzu Academy also arranged for me to visit nearby St Andrew’s hospital and orphanage. Here I was shown around all the rooms of the hospital and met two mothers who had recently given birth. One of the mothers, whose daughter had been born that morning, asked me to name her baby. This was a tremendous privilege for me, so I named her after my own daughter, Emily and added Joy as this is what I hope for her. The hospital has facilities for AIDS testing and counseling and is in the process of completing an operating theatre but they are waiting for an anesthetist to be trained. I next went to orphanage and met the children there. Many had been there since they were day old babies, their mothers having died in childbirth, or whose parents had died of AIDS or other diseases. Although their circumstances were sad, this was not an unhappy environment. The children were well cared for, attended school and had smiley faces. They were pleased to see me. Clearly they were relatively fortunate but there is always more work to do in this, the fifth poorest country in the world.

Andy and I would like to thank Frank Cooke for his generous hospitality, with the staff and students of Kamuzu Academy, together with the Headmaster and children of Mbonekera School who all made us feel so welcome, as well as Barry Brindley who administered all the necessary paper work for DFID to make the trip possible.

Judith Kerr,

 May 2009

Computing USA School Trip - Sun 22nd Feb 2009

Finale!

A closing comment to confirm to all our readers, that staff and students have arrived back at GSAL safe and sound.

A big thank you to Mrs Rothwell for your help on the trip.  A huge thank you to all students for your excellent conduct and reliability… and a special thank you to all parents, for your overwhelming supportive comments about the blog over the previous week.

Have a good day!

Computing USA School Trip - Fri 20th Feb 2009

And finally…

Our last official full day!  We arrived in San Diego, Southern California… or SoCal as it’s known over here… for our last full day.

The students hit the beach along the Pacific Ocean shores, right next to the famous Hotel Del Corenado… the largest wooden building in the USA (according to our Tour Director… before someone Googles that and picks me up for inaccurate editorial!)

Today was a fully social day for the group, with Will demonstrating his full awareness that San Diego is close to the Mexican border and sporting perhaps the largest sombrero known to man… it is considered that NASA can actually see Will wearing his hat from outer space!

Lunch in the old town gave everyone a chance for some final gift shopping… and Elliot appears to have single handily rebalanced the American economy with all he has spent!  Any rumours that the GSAL contingency will arrive back in Leeds on two coaches is entirely accurate… one for passengers and luggage… and one for Elliot’s shopping bags!

Many students took a rare opportunity to visit a naval aircraft carrier… the USS Midway, recently decommissioned after nearly 50 years active service in the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War.  This education museum provided a wonderful insight into a totally extra curricular aspect of the tour… and Adam even engaged in political dialogue with a US Naval veteran… debating the American -v- British perspectives on US international policy!

San Diego is famous not only for its military bases here, but was also a key location for the filming of the 1980s hit movie Top Gun.  Across the entrance to Seaport Village is Kansas City Barbecue, where students dined in true Californian style!  This restaurant is famous not for its BBQ but for being the place where “Goose and Maverick” jammed to “Great Balls of Fire” in “Top Gun.”  Does anyone else reading this feel old?  The restaurant made the movie feel like a recent box office hit, yet the movie is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary!

Tomorrow, we’re returning to Los Angeles… just 24 hours prior to the Oscars and arriving in the Hollywood city at the same time as many of the ‘celebs’.  We’re treating the students to a day at the shops, combined with some time at Venice beach.

We aim to be at the airport 6.00pm USA time and all is going to plan for a punctual flight and return home.

It’s been a pleasure keeping everyone up-to-date with the antics of our students in California over the past 8 days or so… but it’s time to sign off now.  Thank you for taking the time to read the blog.

Over and out!

Mr Longstaff and all on the GSAL trip.

Computing USA School Trip - Thu 19th Feb 2009

It happened… GSAL has visited the Hollywood Oscars… they even sat in on a live filming of a US sit-com at Warner Bros… and now (drum roll) GSAL has arrived at Universal Studios!

The Californian sun denied the February blues and cleared the sky of all cloud coverage and provided us with a most pleasurable 24 degrees all day!  This was lovely, but of course serves to make the return the UK all the more painful

The students all sported broad smiles at various times of the day, as they experienced some of Universal Studios’ best attractions.  Starting with a full tour of the facility and their special effects… some very new and clever (from a flash flood in the middle of a remote Mexican village to amazing computer generated CGI and 3D cinematographic visual effects) to some… well, let’s just say Jaws was old news in the 1970s!

From the traditional roller coaster stomach turning rides, to the latest in 3D and 4D computerised visual experiences, everyone experienced the latest in effects and entertainment at the studios… and it’s true… if there was an attraction designed to extract maximum squeal and shriek from the audience… Rachel was clearly audible above the masses!

One can only deduce that, despite many a soaking in Jurassic Park, stomach churning moments in The Mummy to the ultra-3-dimension experience of The Terminator… that the day was a success, as all students were tired and quiet on their return for a well earned early night!

AND A NOTE TO MUMS, DADS, FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES:

I just want to send a huge thank you to Mums and Dads… your sons and daughters have been a genuine and most sincere pleasure to have on the trip.  They are a fine example to you and have most certainly been ambassadors to the Grammar School at Leeds, upholding the highest standards of conduct and reliability and reducing any loco parentis responsibility to a bare minimum.  Thank you to each Will, Will, Hannah, Pippa, Oli and James… and to Rach, Ella, Elliot, Rob, Adam and Grace… you’ve been a great bunch.  Thanks too, to Mrs Rothwell, who’s experience of California has helped ensure we don’t miss out on key experiences.  Cheers MrsR!

A look ahead:

• We book out of La Quinta, Los Angeles, in the morning (your evening!), as we head to San Diego.
• Everything is still on track re. flights and timings.

In the spirit of Warner Bros… That’s All Folks!  (well, for today at least!)

MrL! and a most excellent tribe!

Computing USA School Trip - Wed 18th Feb 2009

The school blog and email servers were unavailable for publication of the blog update last night, so apologies to anyone who logged in to find no post for yesterday… but now we’re back online, here is a hello from us all and an update to say all is well with everyone… Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the pre-Oscar preparations and Warner Bros were all excellent experiences… and James cashed in yet another 15-minutes of fame!

A stop at Hollywood Bowl, famous for hosting its many concerts, provided the students with ample opportunity to photograph that famous landmark ‘Hollywood’ sign… first erected as a real estate marketing sign, rather than announcing the location of the film industry, as many believe.

We dropped down into Hollywood Blvd, where they were setting up for the Oscars this coming weekend, but we all enjoyed a visit to the Grauman’s famous ‘hand and footprints’ of stars past and present, together with a walk down the pavements to see the numerous ’stars’ embedded into the ’sidewalk’.

It would appear Elliot, Adam and Rob have been permanently embezzled as Hollywood ’stars’… or have they?!  Mr Longstaff and Mrs Rothwell managed a walk along the famous red carpet leading into the final venue for the forthcoming Oscars, but sadly it was covered in protective sheeting, the press failed to notice and there was no prize at the other end!

Much laughter was to be had at the Warner Bros filming studios, where we went to be part of the live audience for the filming of one of Julia Dreyfus’s ‘New Adventures of Old Christine’ sit-com shows… very funny!  The audience were kept lively by a stand up comedian, who quickly latched onto the notion that one day, a group of ‘Brits’ (us) got up, thought about jumping on a plane to visit Google… found it was closed… then wandered aimlessly around California!  Obviously that was not what has happened, but it caused many a side splitting moment for the audience!

Thank you for now, the group are about to part for the Universal Studios, where we will be all day.  More updates later… do call back.

MrL! et al.

Computing USA School Trip - Tue 17th Feb 2009

Today, we are driving down the scenic coast of California, to Los Angeles, a total of 300 or so miles, over 5 hours south.  To break the journey, there are numerous photo opportunities and a long dinner break in Santa Barbara.

We aim to arrive at our third and final hotel, in Los Angeles, by 9.00pm tonight, having absorbed some of the State’s more eye catching scenery and a fine meal at a local restaurant.

Some photos of the trip down to follow later in the day, but we expect this to be a quiet day for the blog!

Evening Update:

Thank you to all the family and friends who have emailed in with so many positive comments about this blog!  It seems we have quite a following, so I feel indebted to expand on today!

Well, we arrived, but didn’t take the route we first thought we would (as shown in the map), as this was closed to tour buses, for issues surrounding the PGA Tour in Monterey.  So, we took a detour!  Adam was delighted at this, as we ended up stopping for lunch in Solvang, south California.  This is a little Danish town, where some locals speak fluent Danish… as Adam found out… much to the delight of the locals!  And… today was the first time we got some evidence of the origin of the name “sunny California”!

One DVD movie later, we arrived in much need of ice cream and a stretch of legs, in Santa Barbara… as the sun did its best so far this trip!  Bring on Wednesday, as the rain is expected to cease and the sun raise the temperature to mid-20s!

Santa Barbara allowed a much needed reprieve and chance for Hannah and Pippa to walk bare foot in the waves of the Pacific Ocean, while others settled for a sedate walk along the pier, before everyone settled in a little Italian restaurant for our evening meal.

By 9.00pm, we finally arrived at La Quinta Hotel, Los Angeles, where everyone was keen to get to bed!  This was, much to the amusement of some, easier said than done for Mr Longstaff, as the first two room keys provided for his stay, saw him walking in on surprised guests who were equally as shocked as he was!  Needless to say, this blog update is being transmitted from the confines of a private room!

Tomorrow, the group are heading for a tour of downtown LA, with stops at Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard, home of the famous Grauman’s hand and footprints!  After a spot of lunch, everyone is looking forward to attending Universal Studios, Hollywood, to sit in on the live filming of a US comedy sit-com that is so famous, it totally escapes me for the time being!

STOP PRESS:

I had previously disclosed this as being the third and final hotel we would be staying in.  However, EF, the tour operator, has gone some way to compensating our disappointment at not being able to visit the Intel Museum in Silicon Valley (closed owing to Presidents’ Day).  On Friday, we are heading to San Diego for the day, for some site seeing and dinner in the San Diego restaurant called Kansas City BBQ… and for those readers who remember the Tom Cruise film Top Gun, this is the restaurant featured in the Top Gun movie.  We are all expecting Will to serenade Hannah with his rendition of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling… well… we can live in hope!

FLIGHT DETAILS:

Everything remains as published.  We expect to depart Los Angeles at around 9.00pm on Saturday 21st February and land back at Heathrow, on Sunday 22nd February, at around 3.30pm.  The flight number is VS024, for those tracking our arrival progress!

Students will ring ahead to forewarn parents of expected times of arrival, but this is expected to be around 9.00pm at GSAL.

MrL! et al

Computing USA School Trip - Mon 16th Feb 2009

It’s that time already!  We aim to depart San Francisco in about an hour from now, heading out to the headquarters of Apple, Google, Yahoo and Intel… to name but a few!  The select few certainly know how to live in Silicon Valley!

The morning will be spent having plenty of photo opportunities of these leading computing giants, before heading off to Monterey, California.

By this evening, we shall be booking into hotel number 2, in the Monterey region of California, where we will stay for one night, before continuing our journey to Los Angeles tomorrow.

According to the international calendar, it’s The Oscars in LA, the day after we leave!  What timing!  That said, the group are excited about the prospect of being able to go down and see the preparations… and who knows… one or more of us may even get our photo taken… on the famous red carpet!

The computing fun really starts in LA, with visits to Hollywood and Universal Studios, where we have been invited to be part of the live audience at the recording of one of America’s comedy sitcoms.

Anyway, I hear noises from either room next door, which is good news, as it means our intrepid explorers are up and ready for their day in Silicon Valley and Monterey.

The students have enjoyed visiting the international headquarters of Google, Yahoo and Apple, before travelling down half way to Los Angeles, to the coastal town of Monterey, where we’ve booked into a rather nice hotel.

The group really impressed the Tour Director, by its wealth of computing knowledge, in particular, Elliot’s depth of historic facts for Apple and Google… advising (correctly) that Google, a $160bn household name, owes its name to a classic mis-spelling of ‘googol’!

The trip to the interactive electronics museum was a perfect opportunity for the Year 12 girls to apply what they had learnt about Boolean logic gates and microprocessor circuitry, by creating their own oversized microprocessor of AND, NOT and OR gates, to automate a modern car… but which could have easily been the internal logic workings of the robotic arm that left GSAL’s mark on the Californian museum!

By the end of the day, the wet and miserable weather was starting to show signs of giving the group a break and the sun came out, providing an excellent opportunity for a group photo at the headquarters of a web-based company everyone had experienced at some stage previously… Ebay and Paypal!

Monterey presents itself as a very wealthy, clean and proud town and right at the heart of the locality, is the world famous golf course… Pebble Beach, which, during the same week we are passing through, is hosting the PGA Tour.

Thank you to all our readers back home, who have emailed in with numerous compliments about the blog additions… all the inspiration we need to keep writing!

And later this week… two BIG things arrive in Los Angeles… the OSCARS… and perhaps more significantly… GSAL!!  More to follow…

Mr Longstaff et al

Computing USA School Trip - Sun 15th Feb 2009

It’s wet!  It’s very wet!  And it’s very cold!  San Francisco, home of fog and rain, has decided, in its full glory, not to let us down in terms of weather.

The group enjoyed a well deserved sleep and were excited to launch into their first full day… after breakfast that is.

Raincoats on… umbrellas up and it was off to down town San Francisco for a full city tour, with lunch at the famous Fisherman’s Wharf at Pier 39, but not until everyone enjoyed a hot chocolate in Golden Gate Park… San Francisco’s smaller version of New York’s Central Park.  A trip to Lombard Street, the city’s and world’s bendiest street, exposed us to the elements like no other street in the city could!  It felt as though, for every foot forward, you went up a foot!  A wonderful view of this famous street, but it was a quick turnaround… to escape the rain and cold… and head for the shops!

Westfield Mall struck a real thumbs up with the group, who were keen to escape the teachers and shop until they dropped!  Shops of every shape and size, brand and preference, were soon explored… including a mandatory stop by those interested, in the cities Apple store, to witness first hand, the latest in the Apple brand of computer gadgets!  Mr Longstaff’s daily budget was not blown on the latest hardware or software musthave… but instead… an umbrella to keep him dry!  Walking alongside Mrs Rothwell was one thing, but walking like Neanderthal man does nothing for the ’street cred’, or so one student suggested!

A quiet night now expected, as everyone feels they’ve walked sufficient miles to get nearly halfway back to England and the wet, cold weather has done nothing to invigorate the energy levels… or maybe that’s the jet-lag finally taking hold!

Our final night in San Francisco, as tomorrow we head for Silicon Valley.  Plenty of photo opportunities for students, outside of international corporate headquarters for Google, Yahoo, Apple and Intel!  Unfortunately, the Intel Museum was recently passed from private to public ownership, and Monday is President’s Day… a national holiday, so a diversion to the interactive computing Technology Museum of Innovation has been well received by all, to be followed by a visit to Fry’s Electronic Store, will allow us all to see first hand, some of the latest cutting edge consumer electronics.

We’ll spend the afternoon in San Diego, before dining and booking into our hotel in Monterey… then off to Los Angeles on Tuesday!

Good night all!

Mr Longstaff et al