MY TRIP TO QUEBEC

My trip to Quebec:

I’ve recently participated in an exchange programme organised by the school to Quebec. I could say  it is one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I’m going to talk about the Jesus-Marie School of Sillery. It belongs to the same congregation of nuns as the one in Madrid so it’s similar. For example a prayer is said at the beginning of the day and the nuns also live in the school area.

Jesus-Marie is also a boarding school and it’s the best school in the city of Quebec.

This school is also very different. The main difference is the area and the structure of the school itself, in Quebec the school is bigger and has more than one building, although the buildings are less high. Also in Sillery they have more sports facilities like an outside football pitch or two gymnasiums.     

There’s also a different schedule, there are only four periods of classes of one and a half hour each, school starts at 8: 30 and they have a break at 11 that lasts for 20 minutes and school finishes at 3:15.    The lunch break is at 12:45 until 14:00. You can either go to the canteen or bring your packed lunch.   

Within the Quebec School System, you can also find that there’s less variety of subjects than the amount we study here. They only have: Maths, Science, French, English and you can choose amongst Drama, Music and Art and Crafts.

Another interesting thing  you can do there is “ JM PM”:  One afternoon you do an activity that you choose for two hours;  They can be activities such as cooking, various sports, music lessons, dance lessons and many more.

Students move around to find the teachers in their rooms. Each subject and teacher has got their own room fully equipped with what is needed to teach the subject. The lockers are not in the classrooms and each period you have to go to your locker which is in a lower floor to switch your books for the next class.

JM is very famous for its musicals; last year for example they did The Lion King. It was an awesome set up with all the masks and everything. The school is also well known because of the sports. The main sports played in the school are basketball and rugby.

Uniform is similar to ours and we had to wear it whilst we were there. Nevertheless, they can choose the kind of shoes they want to wear and some of them use sneakers.

One very different thing between both schools is that Quebec school hasn’t been a mixed school for a very long time so there are not many boys and most of them are still in Primary Education.

I thought the curriculum was very good and you had very good chances to learn a lot if you wanted to. Teachers helped students a lot and most of them also helped us.

I would totally recommend this school. If you have the chance to participate in this exchange, don’t hesitate even for a minute and take on the challenge.