Hoping to reopen for summer 2021

Summer 2020 was the first summer in over thirty years when - due to Covid-19 - we had to cancel our courses. Now, with the promise of new vaccines and a gradually improving situation, we are hoping to fully reopen for Summer 2021.

Young people in particular have had a hard time during the crisis, often confined to home, unable to mix with their peers at school or get outside to play and meet friends. ECS in Summer 2021 will offer a wonderful and much needed change of scene and an opportunity for them to engage once again with real life. The extensive countryside campus at Port Regis provides a healthy green backdrop where they will be able to experience the joy of reuniting and making new friendships with their peers from around the world. Freed from electronic screens they will once again be able to enjoy the profound physical experience of real learning, fun and friendship.

During closure we have been busy following government and industry COVID-19 guidelines to enable us to reopen. We have been awarded the industry standard ‘Good to Go’ mark that you can see on this page. In addition, we have helped to create a Covid-19 checklist for Young Learner schools that you can find here. We are fortunate that our existing division of pupils into three separate age groups provides three natural ‘bubbles’ that we can maintain without changing the course too much. As the Covid-19 situation improves you can be sure we will continue to revise and update our procedures in order to provide the best possible balance of enjoyment, freedom and safety for our pupils.

During Covid we have also been developing our expertise in delivering online services. We are now Zoom aficionados and have been pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable and effective our 1:1 online teaching has proved. We have extended our Trinity GESE provision to include online training, are planning a ‘Fun with English’ Easter offering and will be organising Zoom meetings for parents and pupils in the different age groups before the course begins, to say hello, learn more about the school and ask any questions.

In these unprecedented times we have no idea how popular our courses will be in Summer 2021. We have made a good start with many pupils deferring from 2020, for which many thanks. Our feeling is that there is considerable pent-up demand around the world, but much will depend on the situation in individual countries. We promise that if you book a place for Summer 2021 and your child is unable to attend due to Covid-19 we will fully refund any payment you have made (minus any bank charges). So if you have not yet booked you can go ahead and book now if you wish to be certain of a place.

If however the school turns out to be less full than usual, this means our welcome to those who attend will be all the greater. And having ‘rested’ for longer than we ever wanted, we will return refreshed, stronger and more determined than ever to make ECS Summer 2021 the best summer of their life for everyone who attends.

With very best wishes,
Christopher & Sarah Etchells
ECS, November 2020