Our Unique VBE Programme

At KSC we strive to provide collaborative learning opportunities to our students, partnership organistaions and to communities. We launched the Virual Buddy Exchange Programme (VBE) in the spring of 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had our first student exchanges taking place from August 2020 onwards.

The programme quickly defined itself as our flagship programme for our students’ international learning opportunities and some of the words used by our students to describe their experience of the programme include: “Life-changing”; “Educational”; “Unique”; “Unforgettable”; “Enjoyable”; and “Amazing”.

The VBE enables students or  participants to exchanges experiences, cultures, hobbies, and ideas with English students for a period of six weeks for students aged between 9 –17 years of age. It gives our students the unique opportunity to connect with other people, other cultures and other countries and provide another truly collaborative learning experience. 

It is Unique and Beneficial

The programme offers our students amazing and diverse learning opportunities within a safe and secure environment, specially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Buddy exchange students gain real-world learning skills such as presentation skills, public speaking and a great way to expand the English knowledge with a native an English speaking buddy. The projects and assignments are aimed at the student’s level of learning and understanding and they receive daily support and guidance from our colleagues and other native English speaking students. Students enjoy a memorable international and cultural learning experience to develop their language skills, communicate ideas in a different way, share good practice and create long-term friendships across the world.

Immersive Culture Experience

The schedule of weekly video calls for students will take place with their designated VBE buddies, arranged and supervised by their Buddy Exchange Coordinators, who are made up of staff from their respective schools or organisations. The conferencing calls will be structured around weekly topics from which both students will prepare and discuss their own presentation. Topics for the programme will include: Cultures, Music, Film & TV, Sports and a tour of your city or country and will include a final learning reflection task. The video calls are an opportunity for our students to meet other students from all over the world, build their confidence, improve their presentation skills and widen their knowledge on specific topics.

It Improves English Skills

Communicating in English with other VBE students and colleagues is a valuable way to meet new people and practise fluency, and although at times this can be challenging, it is a good struggle providing students with the chance to improve language skills, build confidence, raise cultural awareness and improve presentation skills. We want to encourage our students to raise their cultural awareness and practise their language skills in order to take full advantage of their time spent with their weekly buddy from a different country.

Stucture of Video Calls

The 45-minute video calls have the following suggested structure:

1.  Student A personal introduction (5 mins) – (name/ age/ school/ why you chose to do VBE)
2.  Student B personal introduction (5 mins)
3. Student A topic presentation (5 mins) – (introduction/ background/ main ideas/ summary to raise questions)
4.  Student B topic presentation (5 mins)
5.  Open free discussion between students A and B (25 mins) about the discussed topic and any other thing they would like to talk about; the impact on teenagers in their respective countries, how the topic has changed over recent times, etc.

Safeguarding and Safety Procedures

At Kingston Study Centre (KSC), we take online safety, health practices and wellbeing of our students seriously. We have setup a comprehensive set of rules and guidelines to ensure the safely of our students. Please discover our Safeguarding Guidance on Virtual Learning and Video Conferences
procedures by following link below.