Soon after the end of the Summer Term, seventeen students from Forms 2 to 5, accompanied by two teachers, traveled to France to spend one week in Paris, the school’s first ever trip to Europe. The students were able to practise speaking in French, visit all the places they had read about in class, and learn more about French society and culture. In June, the French Ambassador to Sri Lanka, His Excellency MM. Jean Paul Monchau, had come to the school to speak to the students in advance of their visit. He encouraged them to make the most of the visit, which would allow them to hear French being spoken as an everyday language rather than just seeing it as words in a textbook.

Some of the many highlights were seeing the Mona Lisa in Le Louvre, climbing to the top of L’Arc de Triomphe to see the twelve avenues radiating out from it, travelling down La Seine in a Bateau Mouche, and going to the top of La Tour Eiffel, before walking all 666 steps down. The students also travelled out of Paris to the Château de Versailles and Disneyland. On July 14th, the holiday celebrating the Storming of the Bastille in the French Revolution, VIP seats had been arranged for the students to watch the military parade on the Champs-Élysées, before the students watched the famous nighttime firework display over La Tour Eiffel. The students also enjoyed sampling France’s famous food, even trying escargot – snails. Overall, it was the trip of a lifetime for all the students lucky enough to go. One said: ‘I shall never forget our walks through the city. Each street had its own character and there was always something around the https://www.sihspune.org/clomid.php corner. It was truly an amazing experience’. We now hope to make regular trips, every two or three years, for students learning French.

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