This week we have said goodbye to our Japanese High School students; the boys at Canterbury with a ceremony honouring their achievements and the girls at Broadstairs with a talent show where the girls had great fun showing off their dancing, singing and hulahoop skills. Everyone had a wonderful time and another group of happy High School students left for home.

Due to demand, we have introduced a new 10 – week evening course at Canterbury for students planning to take the IELTS Academic examination. The course runs on Thursday evenings for two hours, 19.00 – 21.00, from November 16th to December 14th, then starts again after the Christmas break from January 11th to February 8th. Students can then opt to take the official IELTS examination on Saturday 24th February. For full details, click here.

One to one English Language training for officers is now taking place on board the Dover to Dunkerque DFDS ferries, with our trainer Karen observing while various procedures are carried out and then following up on any problems. The focus in these sessions is to improve grammar and pronunciation. Following the success of this programme, we will deliver a programme for Deck Officers in Canterbury in January 2018.

Chaucer College is now  running a range of NHS courses across Kent . An IELTS preparation course in Dartford is supporting nurses aiming for the required IELTS 7 in all four skills bands, while we are also providing Communication Skills courses in Ashford and Margate. As these are going so well we have now been asked to prepare further training programmes for 2018.

On Monday, in the presence of Lord Mayor Rosemary Doyle, we said goodbye to our wonderful Japanese students from Shumei University as we celebrated their hard work and achievements both inside and outside the classroom. These included a wide range of academic subjects and communication skills as well as many hours of volunteering for national and local charities. After the students’ speeches, they sang a very touching farewell song ‘ Tabidachi no hi’ . Hardly a dry eye in the house! The ceremony was followed by a delicious meal.