German Exchange

GERMAN EXCHANGE JOY 

Macleod College had the great fortune of recently being able to welcome three exchange students from Düsseldorf, Mia Soulis , Urs Hohrath and Lilly Pham. They are part of the combined group of 15 students taking part in this joint exchange with Viewbank College. Many thanks to the Burgio Spooner, Swaine and Pilmore families for hosting; PJ Burgio Spooner and Ted Swaine of Year 10 will be seeing them again in Düsseldorf this November.

We are delighted this biannual exchange can take place again after the pandemic years, evidenced by squeals and tears of joy at Tullamarine airport when the German students and their teachers landed on Friday 15 March. It was then “all systems go” to help them experience the best of Melbourne and Victoria before they flew out to Sydney and then Queensland on Easter Sunday.

Here at Macleod Urs and Mia enjoyed visiting and talking to many year levels from Prep to Year 12 and coming to Athletics Day. They also helped senior students of German with vocabulary and conversational skills on our excursion to the Melbourne CBD. In addition, all the Düsseldorf students participated in popular Australian cooking and sport workshops at Viewbank and were curious to see a variety of Australian wildlife at Healesville Sanctuary.

We now look forward to our return visit to Germany this November with a group of 13 students and 3 teachers from Macleod and Viewbank combined. For future exchanges participants must have chosen elective German in Years 10-12 and clearly show our school values of Achieve, Respect and Connect.

The Swaine family with Urs Hohrath at the welcome BBQ.

PJ and Amy Burgio Spooner with their exchange student Mia plus Tilly from Viewbank and her exchange partner Anniina.

The Duesseldorf boys at our farewell pizza evening.