Our Exciting New Partnership in Chile

It's always exciting when a new door opens, especially when it leads to an entirely new corner of the world. Recently, an exciting opportunity has arisen that will see Farnborough Hill developing ties with a school an ocean away in Santiago, Chile. 

You may know we've mentioned a budding partnership, and I'm pleased to share that this exciting international journey is well and truly taking off! Now, you may be thinking, "Chile? That's quite a leap!" And you'd be right! But this rather wonderful partnership came about thanks to our fantastic Spanish Assistant, Señora Bravo de Amesti. She used to teach at Colegio Las Ursulinas and her daughter even attended the school. When she shared stories about Las Ursulinas, we both immediately felt it could be an excellent fit for Farnborough Hill. I'm incredibly keen on building a genuinely international outlook for our pupils, and getting to know a different part of the world through forming international friendships is such a brilliant way to do it. So it was with great excitement that I found myself making my first visit to Chile over half term, taking a long but direct flight from Heathrow. 

My experience at Las Ursulinas was simply wonderful. The day began with Mass for Santa Angela Merici, the founder of the Ursuline Order. I then had the pleasure of meeting the Junior Leadership Team ('CASU') and was given a fantastic tour by a small group of pupils. I even had the chance to give an assembly about Farnborough Hill – always a fun experience! The day continued with an SLT meeting, a delightful lunch with the staff and some precious time spent in their Kindergarten. To top it all off, I enjoyed a delicious dinner (featuring the desert island dish, ceviche!) with the Leadership Team.

The school lives its Ursuline values with a truly wholehearted approach, and they loved that we also encourage this mindset. The Holy Spirit was abroad in much that I saw, and it was particularly impressive to see how the Catholic values of the school are truly expressed in their huge ethos of service to those in need, as well as in the more traditional formation and liturgy encountered in school: the CASU ensures that groups of girls are busy at the weekends, volunteering on a variety of projects in the less privileged areas of the city, genuinely making a difference in community centres and old peoples’ homes, for example. 

As an Ursuline school, its roots stretch back to Germany, home of the founding Order. This means that German is an important language, and of equal importance to English. In the Kindergarten, I was impressed to see the 3-week rota of learning immersively (i.e. all subjects taught in the one language) in Spanish, English and German. English week was just beginning when I was there and even the littlest ones were keen to try some confident sentences on me. I was able to help them label their ‘undersea’ pictures with words such as ‘shark’, ‘crab’, ‘rocks’ etc. This is a relatively new initiative, but an inspiring one, and the UK has much to learn from such a committed approach to language education. 

At the SLT meeting we discussed the many challenges we have in common, from mobile phones to mental health, screens in the classroom to the pressures public exams put on the way we educate. We talked through the practicalities of setting up an annual exchange, and we all hope and pray that this will come to fruition. 

Chile is a thrilling country to discover. Mine was a flying visit, but I did manage to see many ‘firsts’. A trip to Valparaiso stunned with their world-famous street art, the colourful house of Pablo Neruda and a seashore rich with (noisy) sealions, vultures, pelicans and exotic-looking Inca terns! The following day, I undertook a trek in the Andes, which soar above the city of Santiago and were already snowy, it being the beginning of winter there at the moment. I felt as though I was walking into the pages of a Geography textbook chapter on glaciation, and I was excited to see my first glacier, volcanoes and some impressive condors soaring high over the mountain ridges. It was amazing to have been standing in the Pacific Ocean one day and walking through knee-high snow the next!

The great warmth and hospitality of the Chilenos was notable. Initially, the different pace and intonation of Chilean Spanish was a minor challenge, but your ear soon tunes in. I learned so much about the history and culture of this sometimes-overlooked country, and I’m sure a little bit of Chile will be making its way into some future assemblies. 

Our girls who decide to get involved in an exchange are in for an enormous treat!

Mrs Maria Young, Headmistress