School in Vigo by Emma

During our stay in Vigo, we had the chance to go to school with our Spanish exchange students.

The IES Politécnico de Vigo is a secondary school in the centre of Vigo.

The school itself looked quite similar to German schools- compared to our German school it was a bit older, but it was very big.

Almost all the Germans went to school before the trips for one or two hours because their exchange students had to go to school in the morning, just like we do here.

Because the school has a lot of students, not everyone can go to school in the morning, so some of them-like my exchange student-have to go in the afternoon.

For him, school starts at around 4pm and ends at 10:30pm.

When he told me that he is going to school that late I was really shocked, especially because he has a really long way to school (about one hour) and he usually never gets home before midnight.

On one day I also went to school at this time with my exchange student.

For me, it felt totally weird to know, that all the others are done with school now and for me it hasn’t started.

In general, the lessons itself weren’t really different from the German ones.

One thing I was noticing is that the teacher never asks questions or that the students never have to say anything, the teacher is just talking.

I’ve also noticed, that the lessons weren’t as structured as in Germany.

My exchange student told me that he was supposed to write an exam in his art class at this day, but in the end, they didn’t do it (and there was no reason for not writing the exam).

But my exchange student had to write another exam that day, so I had to stay outside the classroom, and I went to the library.

At the end of the school day it already was dark outside, and I was so tired, I really have no idea how you can concentrate at this time of the day.

Even though you can sleep longer, I think that you really have no power for school when the day is basically over.

After school we took the bus home and arrived around midnight.

We then had dinner and I went straight to bed.

My exchange student told me, that he always studies at night and not in the mornings before school.

After discovering what school in the evening is like, I can say that I am really happy about our times in Germany-even though we have to get up very early we still have the whole day left after school and enough time to study, to meet friends or for our hobbies.

When you go to school at that time, doing free time activities during the week is almost impossible and you just can do that on the weekends.

The Spanish school itself was not that different from the German ones-of course there are some differences, like the exams that are much shorter or the structure of the lessons.

In the end, I think it was really interesting to go to school in another country and to see what school there is like.