Advice about Exchange Trip

[Daphnesmate]

My secondary aged dc has an opportunity to go on a foreign exchange trip, however there are limited spaces and dc has expressed an interest in going.
The school seem to be operating some sort of criteria regarding selection for this trip and I can't help but think they are looking for certain things (as well as the host not having any criminal record etc.), behaviour at school etc.
Can I ask, if you have hosted an exchange student, what did you do with them in the evenings/at the weekend/any activities and what sort of things do you need to bear in mind (how is daily life affected etc.) I think they will be out on trips during the day, so that part of the trip is organised.
Anyone?

They tended to meet up (my dd plus the exchange student) with the other exchange students and pupils from dd's school on a couple of the nights.
One night he asked if he could play Monopoly
We watched TV another night (I remember back in the dark ages how much I enjoyed trying to see how much of French TV I could follow.)
One night the school arranged something at school for them all.

Oh, and he went to Explorers with my dd the one night.

We live in the south east, so did a theatre show in the West End one evening. I think one of DD's friends also hosted a BBQ for her friends and their exchange students.
We went to Leeds Castle as a group outing on one of the weekend days.
I also think they played on the wi. And went shopping!
Remember to take a gift for the host family that your son will be staying with. Needn't be expensive - the students on my DD's exchange all brought identical packs of locally produced bread!

Watching with interest as my dd has just signed up for an exchange trip. She is looking forward to it although a bit nervous as she lacks confidence. I just hope she gets on with whoever she exchanges with. We are in the South East so a sightseeing trip will be on the cards.

DS did an exchange trip with a Taiwanese boy a few years ago. Fortunately, DS went to Taiwan first so we had a pretty good idea as to the other child’s interests. We had a full weekend with him at the start- went on a long group dog walk in the country on the Saturday, then took him to dinner in South Queensferry to see the bridges (plus he had haggis and Irn Bru for dinner there ). He liked historical places so on the Sunday we went to Falkland Palace via various other historical places.

During the week, the school took them on various day trips and there were a couple of evening get togethers so mostly he just chilled at ours in the evening though we took him up Arthur’s Seat one evening. Then the last day we took him to a local outdoor sculpture, art type place. He liked to walk!

He was only here for a week so not to hard to fill the time.

Thanks this is very useful x

We've hosted four times. The visitors tagged along to dc activities after school and went to London etc at weekends, played games, watched films. School arranged trips which sometimes included dinner/evening.

We did a French one in Y8. We're on the edge of London, so they went in every day for some reason or another so we had to come up with something else for the weekend!

A group of us all went to Brighton for the day which they all seemed to enjoy- traditional English seaside and fish and chips ( January probably wasn't the best time of year but still). We also met up with some others for bowling. She went to my Dds dance class one night, but most of the time was glad of some down time in the evening.

She wanted to try some traditional English food, so we had a roast, shepherds pie and apple crumble, and a Full English.

The Wii worked well as the language didn't matter. Google translate was very useful!

I had been dreading it, but actually it was fine despite the snow and a train strike .