Scotch College

Our Australian experience

In 1995 my brother Timothy went for 7 months to Australia. My parents had lived in Melbourne 20 years ago and so they have some friends there who organised the exchange.

He stayed for Terms 3 and 4 at Scotch College and loved it. The first term he stayed with the Burke family and the second term he stayed with the Thomas family, two families with boys at Scotch. He did athletics and played tennis for Scotch.

When Tim came back, he was so impressed with Australia and the school that I decided to go to Australia. I went to Scotch during Terms 1 and 2 of this year (Year 11) and it was so good, that I would have loved to have stayed longer.

I was grateful that the original scholarship granted to me for one term was extended by another term, because I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to see more of the countryside and learn more about the people.

I stayed with three different families: the Batrouneys, the Cheethams and the Feddersens. Hugh Batrouney is going to come over and visit me in Germany during his summer holidays, as some of his mates are doing with other German families. He will also attend my German school.

The great thing about those exchanges was that we saw so many new things, met so many nice people and learned so much about another country and another language. Scotch was the perfect school for us, because we both love sports and we loved to be once in a school that one can be proud of.

In Germany there are hardly any private schools and the outside appearance of our German school is not nearly as nice as Scotch, as far as the grounds and the buildings are concerned. The academic standard, however, is quite comparable.

We both would like to thank all those at Scotch who gave us the opportunity to attend such a fine school, especially Mr Kong, and we thank all the people who knew us for being so kind to us.

Nicholas Krauss