On 8th April five Spanish students from Year 12 made an early start on Easter Sunday to travel to Madrid for a week. The aim of the trip was to enhance the students’ linguistic skills ahead of the AS examinations and improve their cultural awareness.

On arrival, the students headed straight to the beautiful Parque del Buen Retiro to relax and watch the world go by before going to the Prado Museum to contemplate the masterpieces of artists such as Goya and Velásquez. Each morning for the rest of the week, students had 4 hours of intensive Spanish lessons with native speakers at the Linguarama language school, where they were encouraged to communicate entirely in Spanish and practise their AS topics.All involved found the lessons highly useful, enjoyable and valuable, and the students impressed the staff with their enthusiasm.

Afternoons and evenings were spent visiting the sites of Madrid, such as the Puerta del Sol, the Reina Sofía Museum (in which students saw Picasso's 'Guernica'), a tour of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the Royal Palace, and a trip out of Madrid to Toledo. The highlight for many was experiencing at first hand the incredible atmosphere at the the Vicente Calderón Stadium for the crucial Madrid derby - the La Liga battle between Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid in which Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick. Spanish food was also high on the agenda, with patatas bravas, oysters, churros, paella, rice cooked in squid ink, and eggs, chips and eels all devoured!