Intellectual Extension

From time to time, individual departments organise lectures about a particular theme in their subject. These are attended by whole year groups or by students who are interested in the topic. Thanks to the enthusiasm of ECP’s departments, our school has benefited from lectures given by many specialists from the academic world such as historians, economists and scientists. Here are a few examples: 

Economics: Future Business Leaders, Bloomberg Professional

History – Terezín during World War II

Czech – The Fiction of Bohumil Hrabal 

Science – Careers in Science

The English College is an academic school and therefore effective teaching and learning is our priority. Teaching does not take place only in the classroom, but also elsewhere. Almost all Faculties organise educational trips in Prague – as part of Prague Programme – and also around the Czech Republic. This gives students an exceptional opportunity to connect what they have learnt in school with real life situations.

Czech

Every year, the Czech Faculty takes students on a literature trip, such as the Mácha or Karel Čapek Trip. Students visit the places connected with the author’s life, read texts written by or about the author; they read their correspondence, but above all, they discuss their unique life stories and the impact of their literary work. Discussions that take place in a beautiful natural setting have a very special flavour and make these trips unforgettable both for students and their teachers.

English

Whilst opportunities for English language and literature trips in Prague are limited, we take Year 1 students to the Old Town to research and produce brochures and guides for tourists.  In October, students from Years 3-5 are invited to travel to the UK to attend the Cheltenham Literature Festival.  Cheltenham celebrates the written and spoken word, presenting the best new voices in fiction and poetry alongside literary greats and high-profile speakers.  It is a fabulous trip which gives students the opportunity to experience the regency spa town of Cheltenham as well as meeting some of the greatest contemporary thinkers and writers.

Arts

Various trips and excursions are organised by the Arts Faculty, under the Prague Programme. The faculty makes excellent use of the cultural institutions available in the Czech Republic and further afield. Trips in the Visual Arts have previously included Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Amsterdam and Paris – allowing students to enrich their cultural appreciation and expand their visual understanding by viewing both traditional and contemporary art forms.

Modern Languages

The Modern Languages Department organises different culturaltrips every year, usually one for each of the foreign languages we teach:

• A trip to Russia, normally in Term 1, visited either to Moscow or St Petersburg. It was a largely cultural visit because the students’ language skills were still at an elementary level. Under normal circumstances we would run this trip, however, due to the current climate, it is not possible. We hope this rich experience will be available for students in the future.
• A German trip to Berlin is organised for Year 3 students every year. This is a mixture of language and cultural activities, with students visiting the key tourist sites in the German capital. They learn a lot about German history, and it complements their studies of the First and Second World Wars as part of their History course.
• ECP has two language exchanges which run during the school year, one for French and one for Spanish. The partner schools’ students visit us in one term and we visit them in Nantes (France)/Valencia (Spain) the next. This is an excellent opportunity for our students to experience life in a French/Spanish family as well as host a student from a country where the language which they are studying is spoken.

Humanities

The Humanities Faculty organises a number of trips each year. These are mostly day trips to local places of interest, such as the annual visit to the Škoda factory, which is run by the Geography Department or our History students’ walking tour of renaissance sites in Prague city center.

Science

As an integral aspect of both the IB and Pre-IB courses, students monitor, analyse and evaluate conditions in several local ecosystems. They investigate how changing abiotic factors affect the abundance and diversity of local flora and fauna. This helps the development of their knowledge and understanding of human effects on ecosystems and inculcates a wider appreciation of both the fragility and resilience of natural systems. 

Our school year is framed by trips. While at the beginning of the school year students in Years 1- 4  go on induction trips, the end-of-year trips are more educationally focused. Students in Year 1 sample a DofE expedition. They learn how to read maps, how to pack and all students go on an intensive First Aid Course. The PE Department organises a CCC trip for students in Year 2. Students learn and develop skills needed for camping, canoeing and cycling in a beautiful area of Šumava by Lake Lipno.

Year 3 students are taken on a Science trip to the Jeseníky mountains. They visit a paper factory in Velké Losiny, a power plant in Dlouhá stráň and explore the Jeseníky countryside.

It is obvious that subjects such as History, Science, Literature, Art, Geography and Biology are all “in action” during these trips. Students can appreciate not only that knowledge they gain in school can be used outside the classroom, but also that everything they learn during the trips will help them to understand what they are taught back in school.

Year 4 students explore universities as they are coming closer to their University decision making. They can choose between visiting Oxford or exploring the main Moreavian universities.

All trips also play another important role in school life – they enable students and teachers to spend time together in an informal setting. Thanks to the trips, students and teachers learn more about each other and develop friendly relationships.

Year 1 June Trip brochure

Year 2 June Trip brochure

Year 3 June Trip brochure

Prague is not only a beautiful city, which is now visited by thousands of tourists, it is also a city where you can see and feel not only the history of the Czech Republic, but also of Europe. King Charles IV made Prague the centre of Europe, founded a university here and built what was then a modern town.

To artists, Prague is a place of many galleries and amazing art collections of every period. It is a place that can serve as a textbook of architecture. Prague’s museums house collections from every area of knowledge. Its public and botanical gardens are workplaces for academics as well as places for recreation. In other words, Prague offers endless possibilities for exploring and learning. This is why we established the Prague Programme and each department prepares a programme for students, related to Prague’s unique facilities. Czech students visit the Kafka Museum, students studying Czech History explore Vyšehrad, the Science Department arranges visits to the Technical Museum or the botanical gardens, while Art students visit galleries and art workshops and the Prague treasure hunt – a programme focusing on mediaeval Prague organised for Year 1 students. 

By the end of their studies at ECP, our students, therefore, know Prague much better and also know a lot about Prague – which, as students of the English College in Prague, they should!

It is very important for young people to meet, at the right time, someone who can inspire them in their lives and be a role model. In order to enable our students to meet a range of interesting people, we organise a Lecture and Talk Programme, which has become an important tradition at the ECP.

Over the years. we have invited into school many specialists in their field – to talk about their professions, projects or just to share their life stories with the students. We are proud that in recent years, former students who have fascinating careers have been amongst the speakers.

There are usually four guest speakers annually and lectures are often connected with the Theme of the Year. Each lecture is followed by a discussion and although the programme is primarily designed for students in Years 4 and 5, students from other years are also welcome to attend if they are interested in the topic. The lectures are also a good opportunity for TOK-style discussions. Students and their tutors discuss the topic before each lecture and then follow it up again after the lecture has taken place.

See the overview of the Lectures and Talk Programme.

Some students have particular talents and it is very important to support them in developing those talents. This is why we encourage our students to take part in many external school academic competitions. We are very proud that ECP students have twice won the Václav Havel Library Essay Competition and the International Poetry by Heart Competition.  e have also had very good results in various subject Olympiads. Regularly our students take part in the Czech Olympiad. Our students are also regularly successful in the UKMT Maths Challenges, and several have achieved high enough scores to take part in the invitation-only Kangaroo challenges.

Information about these competitions is available in the Student Bulletin, with all relevant links, and posters publicising them can be found on the :more notice board.

Competitions ECP students have taken part in:

• COBIS Poetry Competition
• Lingvistická olympiáda
• Olympiáda v českém jazyce
• Ekonomická olympiáda
• Student Investor Challenge
• Logická olympiáda
• British Biology Olympiad
• Shake Me Up Shakespeare Online Festival
• Regent’s University (London) Fashion Competition
• UKMT Maths Challenge
• Poetry by Heart Competition
• Global Young Journalist Award