Exchange Visit Guidelines
What to expect from your partner and what to do…
In brief you should expect your French exchange student to fit in with what the family is doing and you
should look after them as though they were a member of the family, as you would want them to do when
you visit France.
You should expect the same standards of behaviour from them as you do from anyone else of the same
age in your family.
Arrival and settling in…
When the French student arrives they may be tired from the journey. Take the time to introduce them to
the other people in the house and show them to their room. They will perhaps want time to freshen up
and unpack and will probably want to phone home to say that they have arrived. The code for France is
0033 and then their normal number minus the first 0. They (and their parents) will want to speak once or
twice during the stay, but phoning home every night would make anyone homesick and perhaps should be
discouraged. Email or MSN are also good ways of staying in touch.
What to feed guests…
Try to plan a meal which is not sensitive for the first night, as they might be delayed. You should be
aware of any allergies already from the forms you have and obviously try to cater for those. It’s always
best to double check.
They may not be ravenously hungry straight away (sweets en route), or then again, they may well be!
(Long time since they finished their packed lunch, 10 km after they set off in the morning…). French
people generally eat well at meal times and do not snack much in between. They are still convinced they
will be poisoned by British food and may not recognise some of our traditional dishes. Usually they get
over this quite soon! Meal times in France are different as you know and can take longer than ours do.
Your partner may expect to eat dinner quite late by traditional English standards (8.00 – 8.30 pm) and
may not be hungry earlier in the evening at first. Anything you normally eat as a family is fine, do not
feel that you have to produce a culinary masterpiece every evening.
Please make sure that your guests have a packed meal to travel home with on the last day and on their day
trips. Be sure to check any up to date restrictions on taking food into other countries.
Inevitably, there will be things which may need to be explained as they might not be as obvious as you
think (meal times ,when to get up / set off in the morning, hot water, window locks, where to put bath
towels or any dirty washing, how to use electrical gadgets, etc).
What to do in the evenings and weekend…
They are here to find out about life in a typical British family and speak English as much as possible.
Anything you normally do as a family is fine. Monopoly or other board games are a good way to spend
time and encourage using English. They will see each other during the day and there are several trips
where they are all together, so there isn’t any real need for you to organise a group activity involving
other French students. They may well enjoy meeting up, but it defeats the purpose of their visit to
Woodbridge.
Getting together with 1 or 2 other English friends to play sport or PS3/Wii games or go shopping in
Ipswich is an easy way to entertain your guest and a 3 or 4 way conversation is easier to keep going and
will feel more natural and less like 20 questions. Beware larger groups though, it is really tiring to listen
to a foreign language and try to keep up with a fast conversation, especially if there is background noise.
Clermont Ferrand is a big city surrounded by mountainous volcanoes. It is 400 miles or so from the
coast. Your partner may not mind going on tours of the area, even if you have seen Framlingham, Orford
Castle, Aldeburgh, and Dunwich a hundred times!
Emergencies…
The most important thing is the health of your visitor. Should an emergency occur away from their
teacher, you should not panic. First of all, assess the situation to find out the facts and then take the
following steps:
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Contact their teacher (07900 058411 or 07900 058412) and your own teacher (through school).
Take your visitor to the hospital if needed with their medical card.
Allow their group teacher to speak to their parents with the facts and resolution.
Once the situation has settled allow your guest to ring home.
It is important that your guest’s teacher speaks to the parents first. This stops any confusion and
panic.
Notes for students in particular…
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You are responsible for them at all times when they are in school. When the programme says in
class with partners, they should be with you in your lessons unless one of the Exchange teachers
tells you otherwise.
Take them to where they need to be at the start of any activity which is only for the French
students. Do not expect them to know their way around the school.
If they are doing a different activity, you should make clear arrangements for meeting up during
the day and at the end of school.
Meet them and stay with them throughout lunch – they will not understand the lunch queue;
remember what it was like when you were in Year 7.
Talk to your partner, that’s why they are here. If you are in a group, make sure that they can
follow the conversation and know what is going on. When you are in France, you will want them
to talk to you and include you, in what they are doing with their friends.