David Morrow is the UIC summer School administrator and also the Summer School Director of Studies. That’s a wide range of responsibilities but it does mean that many of you will have one reason or another to work with David during the year as well at the summer schools. David has a rather unusual working year – it begins in the spring when we start the registration process for the summer schools. This means working with agents and students from all over the world to help them register students for the 2 summer camps we run in Ascot and to give them the admin support they need after this. You might imagine it’s a simple process for an agent to sell a course and just give us a booking, but it is never simple. Students decide to come late, the occasional one drops out because they are ill, flights change, the UK government might decide at the last minute it needs more information for visas – in fact the whole situation is quite fluid (!) from April until June and it’s only really a few days before we get to Ascot that we’re certain who we’re really going to have studying with us there. Once the Summer camps begin David moves down to Ascot for 6 weeks to run the academic side of things – working with another DoS and a couple of assistants / senior teachers to make sure the academic programme is top quality. Although many of thestudents we have want to come to the UK for a holiday course, we do take the academic side of things very seriously and want to ensure students go back home with more English than they came with. David says that the reason he likes coming year after year to Ascot is to see the students grow and develop – and not just as people but with their language skills. David is qualified as an English language teacher, and also has a PGCE – qualifying him to teach in state schools in the UK, this specialised in the ‘middle years’ from 8-12, which is probably the largest age group we have in Ascot. After qualifying David decided not to take a full time job in a school, and has continued his career having a varied (but interesting) life which as well as working at UIC includes teaching on a winter camp in Korea for a month in January and continuing to hone his skills working in a corporate office environment form September until Christmas. So, all in all no chance to get bored – the year divided up into nice different chunks and the opportunity to develop different skills. This gives UIC something quite unique!

Apart from working David likes swimming, and his favourite songs for the summer are” There must be an Angel” by the Eurythmics and “Walking On sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves.

If you’d like to see David in action then come on down to Ascot this summer. If you’d like to know more about the courses then have a looka t our website.

My name is (St) Mary and I’ve been teaching with UIC Ascot Summer School for…let me count 1,2,3,4,5 Summers! Yeah, a true veteran as I am, I can share some thoughts with you on why I keep coming back there. Do you want to know why? Because no matter what the weather’s like (might be scorching, can be pouring) the atmosphere at St. Mary’s School brightens up your day for sure. It’s a golden chance to unwind and mellow out for up to 5 weeks from the daily grind of our lives, when we can’t get on stage as often as we can during the assembly mornings or fabulous theatrical/musical extravaganzas on the Camp .No buts about it; It’s a chance to not only teach/learn English language 24/7 in and outside of the classroom, but also get your cultural awareness on a top level of understanding through meeting and becoming friends with people from all over the world J. Not that I can complain about the luck of colourfully spirited events in my ‘Ascot-less’ time since I’ve lived in Italy for almost 3 years now. I must say Italy leaves me sometimes jaw-dropped in wonder. However, it also gives me an opportunity to evolve as a TEFL teacher, the concept of which seems to be quite a novelty here. To cut the long story short, since my Italian life makes me quite zapped sometimes, I always welcome the idea of a stress relieving, not excluding challenging job at St Mary’s Ascot Camp. So, without further ado, who wants to splash with a shower of smiles?  Now, it’s time for me to say ciao, have a blooming Spring and hope to see you soon,

Mary