Schloss Neubeuern

(Germany)

GERMANY: SCHLOSS NEUBEUERN, NEUBEUERN

Schloss Neubeuern is an independent boarding and day school for girls and boys, providing education up to the Bayerische Zentralabitur (Bavarian university entrance qualification) - one of the most demanding academic programmes worldwide. The best possible preparations for life and the best possible conditions in which to achieve educational goals are the purpose and substance of our work. Our girls and boys learn by having fun and being successful.

Schloss Neubeuern lies atop a mountain with a 360 degree view over the town Neubeuern in Bavaria. Our boys will board.

They offer a selection of sports (soccer, basketball, handball, golf, rock climbing, mountain biking, tennis) and a selection of guilds (amongst others: choir, theatre and media, creative painting, pottery and ceramics, cooking, robotics, etc.).

Usually included in the experience is a trip to Berlin and the Reichstag, where all costs are also covered by the hosting school.

The incoming exchange will most likely be toward the end of the first term as the visiting boys are keen on attending a part of The Journey, while the outgoing exchange will take place during the second term. However, dependent on the availability of boarding space at Schloss Neubeuern, the exchanges may have to occur simultaneously (i.e. incoming students will visit St Alban’s at the same time as our students are visiting them). In this case the St Alban’s student might be required to host the Neubeuern students the following year. It will be required from outgoing exchange students from St Alban's College to attend German communication classes as part of the exchange program and to prepare them to be able to communicate at a reasonable level with the students of Schloss Neubeuern.

Feedback from previous years

Schloss Neubeuern, Germany

Our stay at Schloss Neubeuern was an amazing time to learn new things, meet new people and have fun along the way.

We had many interesting lessons, mainly in English. We were welcomed into every new class, five minutes late, with many questions about ourselves and South Africa. We were pushed out of our comfort zones and gave presentations about our school and how it is different from Neubeuern. All of the presentations didn’t go as planned, but this just gave everyone a chance to laugh. We were also way out of our depth, as we were also asked to help the students which mostly led to us struggling to fix their work and sometimes just having no idea what to do. We were also shocked when we found out that there is school on Saturday. During our stay we were also tasked with learning a little bit of German. We can now proudly say that we know how to count to twenty and say a few simple German sentences.

All the extra activities that we did made our trip all the more fun. We especially liked playing football every Monday night and doing kickboxing and volleyball on Thursdays. Although we couldn’t speak the language everyone else was speaking in the sports, and it didn’t matter because we really communicated more with actions which was nice. We also took part in cooking every Tuesday which was a great time to cook and eat some delicious food and learn more about Bavarian food culture. On days that we didn’t have any extra activities we could always just visit other people, go down to the village or relax in our own rooms. The reason we enjoyed all these activities so much is because our school doesn’t offer them except for football, so all of them were new experiences for us.

Our weekends were definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Our first weekend we stayed with our group and went to laser tag and go-cart. Our second weekend we went home with our host families and had a great time with them. Our third weekend we had a lovely trip planned to Passau and Regensburg. In Passau we saw the different colours of the different rivers go into one which was spectacular. In Regensburg we visited a castle and went shopping; we liked Regensburg very much in particular as it is a very nice place. On our last weekend which was a long weekend, we went home with our host families and once again had an excellent time.

All in all, our exchange to Schloss Neubeuern was amazing and we would definitely do it over again. We would just like to thank everyone who made this experience possible for us!

Ryan Crewe-Brown, Bradley Leonard and Aaron Viljoen

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