This July, Sevenoaks School proudly hosted 350 students from around the world for the 2025 Summer Programme. They enjoyed a month of learning new skills, teamwork, friendship building and exploring the UK.
The programme features lessons in Critical Thinking, Social Leadership, Creativity and Digital Skills taught exclusively by Sevenoaks teachers. This included modules such as ethical responsibilities, hydraulic claw construction, debating, presentations and film-making. We also enjoyed both the English Language Course and the Music Programme where the English students performed their own adaptations of Shakespeare, and the Music students spent two weeks busily rehearsing before treating the rest of the students to a superb concert at the end of the first session.
After lessons, students took part in one of 23 co-curricular options, making use of our incredible sporting facilities with options including climbing, volleyball, tennis, martial arts and boxing. They could also participate in more creative options such as fashion and textiles, art, dance and baking. Whether they were trying something completely new or developing their passion, this was a fantastic opportunity for all students to bond with their new friends and professional coaches.
Over the four weeks the students had the opportunity to participate in excursions to Bluewater, Thorpe Park, London and Cambridge. The London trip is often the favourite of the excursions with visits to iconic British landmarks including the Tower of London, The Shard, The Natural History Museum and Covent Garden.
In addition to all these wonderful opportunities, the students also have 15 different evening activities to choose from. We were very lucky this year to have some very talented activity leaders volunteer to run activities including Phoebe’s much-loved Salsa and dance classes that ran over all four weeks. The students also had a lot of fun at the talent show, disco, casino night, formal dinner and karaoke evening.
It was wonderful to meet all the new faces and see so many friendships forming over the programmes. Melissa, one of our 2025 students, said ‘it was the best two weeks of my life’ and we were delighted to hear that she would love to return next year!
A huge thank you to all our staff for another successful programme, it was great to welcome back 18 Old Sennockians as activity leaders this year. We bid farewell to our Director, Daniel Simpson, who has led the programme for the last two years. We wish him all the best on his new adventure and thank him for his dedication to improving and expanding the programme. We are thrilled to welcome Kari Quant as the new Director of Holiday Programmes. Kari has already joined us for one session of the programme, and is excited to meet students looking to join us in 2026.
