Published on: 14 February 2014


I am having an incredible time here in Picardy. I found it very easy to settle in with my French family and they have been very kind and helpful to me with improving my language skills. I am finding that my French is improving tremendously… I am enjoying going to St Jean et La Croix. Here all the students are very friendly and helpful and are very interested about Australia. The school is quite different to Christ Church in that it is a lot more densely packed together and it is co-ed (they find the idea of boys or girls-only schools very strange here). Also, they put more emphasis on the core subjects and languages than electives such as sport or the Arts. I have found some classes easier to follow than others; sciences are okay but French Literature, not so much! Over the holidays my host family took me to visit Brussels and Paris, both of which I loved. Over the past few weeks they have also been kind enough to take me to the Somme, a Lille LOSC football match and an St Quentin basketball match. 

James Blaxill (Year 10), Beyond Queenslea Drive immersion student