Foreign Exchange Students

[hilili]

Last week I was with a friend who was overseeing foreign students accomodation with host families - she got a phonecall to say that two 14yr old girls were really unhappy. They were going to have to stay with their families until the next day, having a 12 yr old I fealt that I couldn't leave these unhappy kids so I offered to look after them and picked them up. To say the host family was not very welcoming is an understatement- the mother was already in bed and the girls were in a makeshift dark room- I found it quite depressing. The outcome was that my child and I had a fantastic week with the loveliest kids and we were all sad to say goodbye. So my gripe is - the company that organises these trips have done a dreadful job in checking out families (also they only had the word of my friend that I was ok ) and I fealt sad that this was the kids introduction to Britain - shameful!! Has anyone else experienced foreign students ? I'd love to know of other experiences.

[duchessofdulwich]

sadly the bottom line is people do this for the ??, however it sounds like the home was a unsuitable and this is totally irresponsible by the people who run the foreign students placements. they need to ask would they be happy leaving their children with this family?

[duchessofdulwich]

by the way, I take foreign students and said good bye to a 16 year old french student yesterday, who has already sent me 5 emails of pictures and thankyou letters!

[Monkey]

Dear me. I thought things had improved since I was a foreign exchange student. I remember a host family in Austria telling me that they had never met anyone from the travel agency. I have always been very lucky with my families but baby Monkey won't be going on any trip of the kind!

[Ann]

My daughter has just had a week in Brussels as an A level student on work experience. She stayed with an older woman now widowed with a grown up son and grandchildren. She had a fabulous time, the woman was kind and an amazing cook! She made a home made quiche which my daughter said was the best she'd ever eaten and the lovely woman gave her some for her lunch at work the next day. She also made her own ratatouille which was apparently wonderful, yes I'm jealous too.

From what the OP has suggested the organization arranges host families as opposed to exchanges. When my daughter was in year 10 French exchanges could be arranged via the school or by yourself. Having had several holidays in France over the years my daughter made her own arrangements and we had met the family before and have become friends.

It's shameful how those girls were treated, what a horrible introduction to life in Britain! It shouldn't have been down to luck that hilili could step in. Money is paid in advance for these trips. We paid 300 euros for my daughter for one weeks accomodation and work experience with whatever cost that entailed but had to book our own travel.

In our case it was well worth it, daughter waould like to go back next year to stay with the same woman and same work experience!

[hilili]

Thanks for the comments - it's great to hear success stories.