We have been working on presentations and continuing our research from the French exchange weeks before Italy, with the goal to find out information on Gender Equality in music and sport, as well as information on Family Law.

On Saturday the 30th March, we departed from the school gates, on our way to Gatwick Airport. We arrived at Milan Malpensa Airport in the early evening, with a warm welcome awaiting us. Now we had to leave our fellow English peers, and go to visit our Italian hosts for the first time.

On the first day, we all met up at Stato train station. We journeyed to Arona, by the beautiful Lake Maggiore and only 30 miles from Switzerland and the Alps. We trekked up to the tallest point in Arona (not in the most suitable clothes and footwear) and took in the views of Italy and Switzerland. After we managed to get down, we spilt into groups and went on the search for food, eventually finding a quaint, outdoor bar/restaurant overlooking the lake. We then got the train back to Busto and rested for the next productive day lying ahead of us.

Monday was our first day at school. It started off with getting the Bus, and meeting at the school ITE “Enrico Tosi” for 8:15am. We were given a welcome breakfast and then gave exchanged our presentations that we worked on back at SJWMS. We then started our project work and answered some questions in which we were going to put onto a final presentation. After lunch, we took a trip to the Town Centre, to see the sites and learn some more about the area. We finished off the day with an ice cream, went back to our hosts home, and spent the evening with them and their family.

Tuesday was the day we were all looking forward to, the trip to Milan. We arrived in Milan at 9:15am and started off the day with a trip to S’forza Castle, built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. We then advanced through the historic streets to the main site, the Duomo. After seeing the magnificent Cathedral, the next part of our project was to look around the shops and see which shops were stereotypically male and which were stereotypically female. We concluded that fashion and jewellery shops tended to attract females, whereas sport and technological shops tended to attract males. After we ate, we proceeded to Gallerie d’Italia. We ascertained that only one piece of art in the gallery was by a woman, and the rest were constructed or painted by men. We all started to see a pattern in our results, in which we were to add into our presentations. After the long day, we headed back home.

Wednesday was a work day. We arrived in school at 8:15am and continued our project work from the previous day. We were beginning to form an informative presentation on what we had learnt. At 11:00am, we then had a conference on Family law where Italian lawyers came in and discussed the history and current affairs on family laws - it was very interesting and significant to the project. We then left school after lunch and spilt up into groups. Four people, Tymon, Albert and their hosts went to a law firm, and the other groups went around to each other’s homes for a cooking experience. We made two meals, a traditional English dish, and traditional Italian food. In the evening, we all met up in town and socialised properly with more people. We were now able to understand how a typical Italian person lives, and how different their culture is to ours.

Thursday was our last full day, and we were bringing our project to a close. In the morning, we continued with our presentations from the previous days, and then we had another conference, on Music. We were shown the different types of music and how gender plays a role in how popular certain music is and what some artists feel they need to do in order to be listened to. One example made was how certain women sexualise their music videos to expand to a wider audience. We used what we learned to our final presentations. After the projects were complete, we had a free afternoon, which we spent at Italy’s second biggest shopping centre. Our last night was spent with our Italian hosts and teachers, with a meal kindly organised by our teachers. It was at a traditional Italian pizza restaurant; where you could take different slices of pizza instead of ordering one whole pizza. Once we had finished eating our pizzas, the dessert pizzas arrived. There was a wide range of options, for example, tiramisu, chocolate brownie, strawberry cheesecake. They were delicious!

Friday was presentation day. The week had gone so quickly but we were already at the end. All groups came to the front of the class and presented the work they had put together. We were then presented with our awards for participating in the Erasmus project. It was soon time to leave. We had an emotional goodbye, and we made friendships that we will never forget, and despite some turbulence on the plane at the very end, it was an amazing week, creating new, unforgettable memories.

We all want to say thank you to the teachers for all the effort they put into this project and how big of a success it was!

Cameron, year 10 student involved with the project.