As part of student exchange programs, annual trips abroad have become a tradition at Kopaliński. The unflagging popularity of those visits is unsurprising, given that the students who have tried it once are more than happy to revisit the places they’ve already seen.

Where have we been? Where do we go? Thanks to cooperation with our partner schools we have already been to Spain, Great Britain, Germany, France, Norway, Italy, and Greece. We cooperate on a permanent basis with RSG Tromp Meesters high school in the Dutch city of Steenwijk. This allows us to participate in a festival of European youth, where our students can work together with the hosts along with students from Italy, Estonia, Spain, Romania, Sweden, and Slovakia. It is a time when they can all collaborate in international groups, discuss social or economic issues, integrate and just have fun. In English, of course.

How does it all work? The rules are simple – students who choose to take part in the program go to a partner school for a week. They are looked after by hosting families, with whom they spend the weekends and weekday afternoons, engaging in family life, sightseeing, and often visiting their hosts’ relatives. In the mornings, the students follow the exchange schedule at the school, going to classes and debating at conferences. And the evenings…? That depends on the hosts’ imagination. Bowling alleys, shopping malls, ice rinks… For as long as the exchange lasts, cafés are filled with the sounds of different languages. The same is true of Bielsko when students from abroad come to visit their former guests.

What are the benefits of the exchange programs? Integration, countering biases and stereotypes, getting to know new cultures, perfecting language skills – these are only some of their advantages. But what keeps the exchange programs going is most clearly seen during tearful goodbyes and in enduring relationships that exceed the organisers’ expectations.