Students from Europe visit King's Lynn on the Erasmus+ Exchange Programme

The Borough Mayor, Cllr Lesley Bambridge, hosted a large group of foreign students and their teachers, visiting the town under the EU Erasmus+ student exchange programme.

The visit, under the EU funded programme, involved 25 students from a wide range of countries including Germany, France and Italy. It is an introduction to the wider programme, which has been running since 1987, where students are offered the possibility of studying or doing an internship abroad, for a period of at least 2 months and maximum 12 months per cycle of studies.

Springwood School are the lead for the programme in this area, with Tammy Churchyard, the schools head of IT, being the visit coordinator, who had planned a busy week for all involved, this including visits to Cambridge and London.

The weeks activities started with the visit to Trinity Guildhall, where they were introduced to the Mayor, who gave them a guided tour of the historic building. The visit culminated with a presentation by the Mayor, of commemorative Queen’s Jubilee coins to each of the students. Visit coordinator, Tammy Churchyard said “it was a real honour for the group to meet the Mayor and to leave with the wonderful surprise gift of a Jubilee coin, something I am sure they will all treasure.”

The visit to the Guildhall was followed by an historic town tour by Town Guide, Gary Walker, who said “there was a great deal of interest in the town from the group, with some coming from the German cities of Hamburg and Lubeck, who were particularly interested in the town’s historic trading links with the continent through the Hansa League.”

Each of the students is being accommodated with a fellow student from Springwood, with all those involved getting the chance to take part in a reciprocal visit to the continent later in the year.