To educate and inspire through international travels; Crossing borders, removing barriers and opening young minds.

What is Turing?

Our goal at Alexandra Park School (APS) is to maximise the opportunities and experiences of students through education beyond the classroom. All APS staff are committed in our school motto “Success for All” and wish to widen access to every student to enrich themselves by harmonising what binds our subjects and wider society. Turing, provides us some funding to support students in gaining experience of education in alternative settings and importantly to give them the opportunity to develop their knowledge, experiences and interpersonal skills through partnerships with students their own age.  

Throughout the school year 2022/2023 we will be running a total of 10 international trips involving over 300 students visiting countries ranging from the USA, Canada, Denmark, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Morocco, Spain and Turkey.  Each trip will have its own specific focus and outcome targets, but all will be underpinned by common values. 

Values:  

Inclusive Harmony:  We believe that our community is stronger when students have the opportunity to travel and share cultural experiences. 

Global Harmony: We believe that sharing what we have in common enriches lives. 

Academic Harmony: We believe that the thirst for knowledge is historic and global. 

Personal Harmony: We believe that the confidence built through experience creates future ambassadors: people seeking to live in harmony with each other and the Earth. 

Below are some quotes from teachers and students that went on a turing trip:

Thailand

Ms. Stephens writes:

30 music students from Year 12 and 13 spent the half-term break in Thailand on a Turing-funded music tour.

We linked up with Kajonkiet International School in Phuket, where we ran workshops and rehearsal projects as well as presented four joint concerts over the week in venues including the school, Andamanda Water Park, and the Central Shopping Mall.

Our students’ performances were fantastic, energetic, and engaging – you can see photos of the gigs on the KIS Facebook page here. On the final two days, we undertook some lovely excursions including temple visits, a street market, and an elephant sanctuary

Morocco

Year 13 student Isabella:

The French trip to Morocco was an incredible experience that I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to take part in.

Ms. Abassi prepared an itinerary that allowed all of us to really see so much of Morocco, ensuring that we gained an appreciation of many aspects of life there.

We are very grateful to Ms. Abassi and Mr. Sumareh for making the trip possible and providing us with an unforgettable experience. We felt that we really saw Morocco and have collectively expressed a desire to visit it again.

Turkey

Ms. Karapinar writes:

15 A-level Turkish/GCSE students embarked on a Turing trip alongside Mr. Hasan and Ms. Karapinar for a week to visit Istanbul, Türkiye. The students were given the opportunity to explore the Turkish language beyond the curriculum by visiting a local Turkish College - İstanbul Atatürk Anadolu Lisesi. Through this experience our students were able to interact with the college students by taking part in their assembly, observing their lessons and being actively involved in their sporting/singing and dancing activities, enabling new friendships to be built.

This experience prompted further opportunities for students to explore the Turkish language and culture through historic landmarks, traditional foods and a dance performance by The Fire of Anatolia or Anadolu Ateşi- Fire of Anatolia- representing a variety of traditional, folk and modern Turkish dances.

Canada

Ms. Macfarlane writes:

This trip was a really enjoyable experience for everybody and a great opportunity that none of us will forget.

The host families were so welcoming and so generous, and the partner school was amazing. The trip allowed us all to learn new things about Chinese and immigrant culture, as well as experience life outside of Europe generally. Our visits to China Town, exploring the Famous Toronto Path, wandering through St. Lawrence Market, Yonge Street, and a karaoke singing party taught us more about Mandarin as a language, and the conversational phrases we learned would not have been taught in a classroom. Speaking Mandarin in the real world gave us a very different experience from what we have in a classroom setting.

In our closing ceremony, we experienced the very traditional Chinese custom of being given a red envelope with $20 cash for us to buy food ahead of the return journey.

USA

Mr. Coleman writes:

On Easter Sunday, 70 students from our football and netball teams and seven staff set off for Austin, Texas for a 10-day trip. During our time in Texas, we managed to squeeze in a lot of activities. Students spent an afternoon tubing the Guadeloupe River in rubber rings, visited the Sports Science Department of The University of Texas and also got to explore what the campus had to offer. Students also had the chance to visit San Antonio on a day trip and took a tour of the Alamo before spending the afternoon walking around the beautiful river walk.

On a busy Saturday, we got to watch the University of Texas American Football game at the very impressive Darell K Royal Stadium which has a capacity of over 100,000. Later that evening we went to an MLS match between Austin FC & Vancouver White Caps which unfortunately finished in a 0.0 draw.

On our penultimate day, the students spent the morning kayaking on the Colorado River before finishing our trip off with two in-house games between Gaskin’s Giants and Markatis’ Minions. These were very competitive games and the students really enjoyed them. We then walked into the city to Bat Bridge to watch millions of bats fly from under the bridge at sunset which was amazing. An unforgettable trip for all involved.

Canada

Mr Bailey writes:

Year 12 Physics students on the engineering enrichment programme visited Ontario and alongside day trips to Toronto and Niagara Falls, they visited the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo University’s Quantum Computing Lab and spent three days in a Canadian High School. They participated in workshops in Quantum Cybersecurity, on Why Gravity Makes You Fall Up, and Mapping the Universe; all combined with getting to know some Canadian high school students, sharing their physics projects and competing in a chess tournament. Their incredibly impressive projects ranged from light spectroscopy in stars, exo-planets and black holes to detecting dark matter.

All of which had models designed and built by the students to engage their captive audience. The students truly enjoyed everything that Canada had to offer, especially the wild weather that took us from 30-degree sunshine to snow in the space of 12 hours! We hope to host our delightful Canadian counterparts very soon.

Trips still to come

• South Korea
• Singapore