Program Reviews

Sabel teacher is very amiable and has left a deep impression on me. In the classroom, everyone's abilities will be taken into account and layered teaching will be conducted. Each class and homework will be conducted in a layered manner. We have been encouraged to communicate in Spanish. Overall, I really like this teaching method. I won't feel very difficult, or dull and simple.

There are abundant sports activities in school, which is a great honor for me. I can experience different sports activities every afternoon. In sports activities, there were always people who gave me more opportunities. Even those sports activities that I’m not good at will encourage me to try more. They always patiently explained the rules to me. I particularly enjoyed school-organized outdoor activities, especially surfing!! This was my first attempt, but I think it's very, very, very fun!

Our daughter (13) absolutely loved this residential camp. So much so that she wants to return for a month (rather than 2 weeks) this year. The teachers and organizers were amazing and she made wonderful Spanish friends her age. It could not have been a better experience.

The logistics of travel and handover were really well handled. Our daughter could have felt very nervous attending a camp away from home by herself, but the organizers and teachers were so kind, that she didn’t at all. Very highly recommend it.

Chester College has many years of experience as an international school with excellent English and Spanish summer camps. Besides a wonderful location, there is a great deal of factors that speak in its favor. First of all, kindness and pleasant environment. The staff includes experienced professionals and energetic young people that give personalized care to every child. The space is cozy both at school and at the residence. The language course is combined with a lot of fun activities and excursions. The summer camp is very well organized. Parents receive detailed practical information before the program and a personalized progress report afterwards. Making the experience very positive for a shy teenager (as is the case of my child) must be a serious challenge. Yet I believe it was a very useful experience: new scenery, contact with new languages, new people of different nationalities and origins, opportunity to enjoy nature and beautiful landscapes during the excursions, engage in creative group activities, spend much less time with gadgets and much more having an actual social life. It was without any doubt positive and enriching. My daughter's knowledge of Spanish was not zero before the camp, but her speaking skills improved significantly.

I spent 2020-21, my 10th grade, at Chester College. This was an unusual year because of the pandemic. The cozy-looking boarding houses at Chester were closed, so I was staying with a host family. We all had to wear masks of course, and for long stretches we could not socialize with anyone outside the school community or leave town. So life really revolved around school more than it would have otherwise. The Chester College teachers were undaunted by this situation and coped with it creatively and with great dedication. -- Where I came from (California) 10th grade was a critical year already for college preparation for many students. I needed to take certain standardized American classes that year and prepare for certain standard nation-wide tests. My Chester teachers were impressively familiar with the content of these classes and tests. They arranged my schedule in such a way that there was time for them to give me individual tutoring, to allow me to cover these American requirements. But I learned very different things as well, which I would never have been exposed to at home. My Chester teachers made sure my Spanish was improving rapidly, so that I could soon follow classes held in Spanish. These included, for instance, classical philosophy, which I would not have studied at home, and European history taught from a continental European perspective. My (British) English teacher read Shakespeare and other classical literature with her advanced students, and her composition assignments were very different from what is asked of students in California -- perhaps more demanding, but also more interesting, I felt. The school community was particularly small in 2020-21, because of the pandemic, so _every_ class was small and personal. But even in normal years the style would surely not have been very different. Everyone was kind, friendly, and supportive. The school's overall attitude was that academic achievement was important and possible to everyone, but was not the only goal to focus on. Physical thriving mattered: we had a nutritious lunch together every day in the dining hall, an event which brought us all together as a community. Also, all age-groups were out doing field sports behind the school almost every day. We had all-school gatherings, celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with traditions taken from everyone's cultural background and with musical performances. And especially the lower grades did a lot of arts and crafts, while the upper grades were offered an afternoon program involving a blend of design and creative engineering construction, a bit like a makerspace, which I was particularly involved in. The school managed to make the pandemic feel like an opportunity for a warm communal experience, rather than a time of deprivation. The teachers' dedication to keeping up Chester's tradition, which meant their dedication to each individual student, was exceptional.

Coming from Australia, with no exposure to Spanish, our two Teens were apprehensive to say the least! The teachers and program was excellent, and enabled them to get a grasp of basic grammar and pronunciation - often correcting us - and sparked a genuine interest to follow up on the language at home. The excursions in and around Santiago allowed them to be immersed in the stunning region and we found ourselves jealous of their exploits and explorations! The staff were very kind and thoughtful and even held a birthday celebration for one of our children, with cake and singing - and sent us a copy of the recording!

This camp is a great way to learn Spanish or english as people are always speaking in both languages. We also have 4 hour lessons in the morning were we can learn a lot. We have some fun activities afterwards and sometimes go on excursions as well. There even is a swimming pool, a football pitch and a basketball pitch in the college. At the end of the 4 week sessions there is a play in english and the Spanish narrators have to speak in Spanish to explain what is happening. It takes place in a very big theater and it is very fun !! This time we played Aladdin based on the new movie that went out with Will Smith. During the play, there is also dancing and singing and the song are beautiful. The end of the camp is always very sad and everyone was crying in the morning of the last day whilst singing the songs.

I loved the spanish course. It was a great experience and i believe other people should try it too. Santiago is a great place with plenty of fun things to do during the summer. We went on many excursions with the other kids in the english and we even went on some class trips with only the people from our class. We visited many beautiful places throughout Galicia. The spanish course in itself was quite good and my spanish greatly improved by the end of the month. The teachers in the camp are all very nice and are a lot of help. They provide us with pretty good living areas and the food is quite good too. This has been my fourth year doing the camp and i really enjoyed it. I made loads of great friends here and had a great time with them in the camp and the residence and i can't wait to see them all next year.

I loved Santiago! I wanted to choose an area of Spain that was far away from all of the tourists in the Costa del Sol and that's exactly what I got. Santiago is such a beautiful city! The Spanish camp was awesome - the classes were really small so we had lots of help from the teacher and I improved loads over the month.
We also did lots of our lessons offsite - going to the local market to learn the names of the food an practicing ordering drinks for real in a cafe was lots of fun. At the site (Chester College) the Spanish camp was held at the same time as a big English camp for Spanish students, so I made lots of friends from Spain which was cool and it helped me with my Spanish as I could practice with them (some of them were my roommates too). At the end of the camp we all put on a big theater production to showcase our work which was fun, I think it helped to have something to work towards.
We went on about 3 trips a week - often to beaches or nice countryside. The beaches were so beautiful! Also I hate the extreme heat, and in Santiago it was a really nice temperature (about 25-30ºC) which was perfect for me. I would definitely recommend this camp. Oh and the food was delicious too!
PS - I liked it so much I decided to come back to do a year abroad at their international school :-)

I decided to come to Chester College after taking part in their Spanish summer camp a few summers in a row. I had an amazing year and loved Santiago! I studied 10th grade there as I decided I wanted to improve my Spanish. The classes were really small so I got a lot of help, and I had a Spanish lesson every day so I could improve really quickly. When my level was good enough, I started getting other subjects through Spanish as well like Maths and Science. The teachers are all really nice and give you lots of support if you don't know something. They also helped me to think about my university choices and what career I might be interested in.
I liked living in the residence - I shared a room with a Spanish girl and the monitor was really nice - she was from Spain too. At the weekend we went on trips and went to the beach in the summer. The food was really nice too!
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to study abroad and do well in all their normal subjects but also get fluent in Spanish and experience living in another culture.

During my three years of study at Chester College International School, I grew both academically and as a person. Undoubtedly my favorite aspect of studying at Chester College was the chance to study two different education systems simultaneously. This is something that makes the school unique, since it enables students to keep their options open to a wide range of opportunities for university. Moreover, although this may seem as a great amount of work, the teachers make sure that each student has a personalized timetable and choice of courses that best suits their future aspirations.
Studying at Chester has definitely helped me get to where I am now. In fact, studying two different high school systems enabled me to apply to universities in both the UK and Spain. Moreover, throughout the application process, the teachers were extremely helpful and advised me constantly.
Academically, the skills I learnt at Chester are helping me constantly at university. I often look back to my notes from Math and Physics and remember the important time management and study skills we learnt at school.
My years at Chester College were a unforgettable experience. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to open their options for the future and immerse themselves into an outstanding international community.