Japanese Schools Exchange Visit

36 students from our partner schools – Koyo and Kaichi high schools visited Dartford Grammar School in March 2025, all of whom were hosted by families of our students. We are grateful for the warm hospitality shown to our visitors by those families, and hope that they enjoyed this experience. 

Having arrived at Heathrow early on Monday morning, the group immediately came to Dartford and spent the day touring the school and receiving orientation lessons from the expert English Language teachers from Cultural Homestay International. They visited the town centre briefly before being met by their host families, and going home for a well-earned rest.

The rest of the week was spent integrating with DGS students in dual-language lessons, Science and cooking classes and a volleyball session, each of which was lead by our specialist teachers. We were so impressed by the confidence of the students from all of the schools – Koyo, Kaichi and DGS – in communicating with each other and speaking in each other’s language. 

Highlights of the week included the Welcome Ceremony where Dilan Watkinson in Year 12 and Zeme Aibangbee in Year 10 delivered excellent speeches in Japanese, and bands from the upper and lower school – Conglomeration and The People – performed fantastic and uplifting musical performances. Another superb band – Gradient – entertained the group at the ‘Sayonara Party’ on the Friday evening where we said goodbye to our friends, and thanked the host families for all they had done throughout the week. We were delighted to welcome MP for Dartford, Mr Jim Dixon and Pat Kelly who is Chairman of Dartford & District Twinning Association to the leaving party.