House Quiz | News & Events | Denstone College | Staffordshire

Life as an International Boarder - Julian

When I first came to Denstone in September 2024, everything was new to me, and I was nervous but excited at the same time. Within the first days, I was welcomed with open arms and quickly met many new people.

Boarding was completely new to me. I never lived at the same place where I had my lessons, did sports, and hung out with friends all on one campus. But I became a big fan of boarding. The privilege of having everything in one place and not having to spend a lot of time to get from one place to the other was a huge benefit.
 
Another reason why I enjoyed Denstone so much was the wide range of different facilities that are offered. I regularly used the gym, swimming pool, and other sports facilities. But also the pool table, darts board, and table tennis are really nice add-ons to keep yourself entertained and have some fun with your mates.
 
Denstone allowed me to try things that I have never done before whether this was the variety of different trips on the weekend for full-boarders, the different new subjects that we don’t have in Germany like Business and D&T, or trying out a new sport like tennis for me that has brought me great joy. These are just some examples that helped me develop in aspects like academically, physically, or just talking to so many different people practicing my English, and building good friendships.
 
For me, the education system here in England was different compared to what I was used to in Germany. The main difference for me would probably be that I only had 3-4 subjects instead of 11+. But this didn’t mean that I had fewer lessons; it just meant having the same subject more often in a week, which was at the start quite strange for me, but I got used to it pretty fast. I think that I have done more maths in the last half a year than I did 2 years in Germany just because you have it so often. I became a big fan of this school system; I liked that the classes are way smaller and the teachers are much more focused on you as an individual.  I also was more engaged and interested in the lessons just because I got to choose subjects that interested me, which in my case was Business and D&T. These were both subjects that were completely new to me but I was able to do quite well pretty fast in those.
 
If I could advise other German/International students who are planning on coming to Denstone, I would say to try out new things that you might not be able to do in your home country and just make the most out of everything. I had never played tennis in my life before but became a huge fan of it in a very short amount of time.
Without Denstone, I would probably never have started playing tennis.
 
Denstone has brought me a lot of joy, and I had a really good time, I was able to make lots of new friends, improved my English massively, and tried out a lot of new things.