Texas Trip

The school trip to Houston, Texas was a culmination of 18 months of work: long hours, countless phone calls and emails, many a stressful afternoon; however, it all paid off! It was totally worth it as the students got so much out of the cultural experience, with many having made memories for life! Comments from the students such as “This has been the best week of my life” and “Can we come back next year?” topped off this amazing exchange, with it also ending up being the best trip we, as staff, have ever planned and been on.

The idea for the trip was first established back in 2021, with Mr Thaper ambitiously looking into setting up a school exchange. Luckily, Mr Sanders had some family connections with the humanities department in Dulles High School in Sugarland, Houston, Texas. So, we began creating a partnership between the two schools either side of the Atlantic. It was quickly realised that this experience could really benefit both schools and their students as well as greatly expand the cultural capital of all students involved. Our aims in planning this trip were to expand the students’ knowledge and thoughts on American culture further than their TV screens, to provide interactive and in-person experiences, and to widen the students’ horizons to broader topics such as geopolitics, cultural perception and patriotism.

The partnership developed steadily with the setup of group video calls between a group of our Year 10 and Year 11 students and a group of Freshmen from Dulles High School. With students of a similar age from two different societies and education systems, it would allow comparisons across multiple levels on what life is like in our respective countries and schools. We had a variety of discussion points including US vs UK food, sports, US vs UK political systems and education. At times, they would split up into groups to have more personal conversations, discussing favourite hobbies, films and plans for the weekend. It was quickly established that our societies, while they are supposedly very similar, they are in fact different in many more ways than we would consider.

We exchanged classic national gifts with the Dulles High School students over Christmas 2021. We sent over a huge box full of items from Cadbury’s chocolate to a picture of the Queen, Bourbon biscuits to Bird’s Custard. They also sent over a box full of items from Twinkies to Texas keyrings and bumper stickers, Jolly Ranchers to US and Texan flags.

We continued with our group video calls with the American students until the prospect of a school exchange became very real. After a lot of planning and lengthy meetings, the dates and activities were set for October 2022. The next few months composed of finalising 24 students to go and applying for travel documents and before we knew it, October was upon us! All the necessary paperwork was sorted, the students were kitted out in HGS merchandise and Mr Thaper, Mr Sanders and Miss Morgan were ready to go – all we had to do was board the plane at London Heathrow.

The trip itself saw the students:

Go to Brazoria County Fair, a Texan county fair with a rodeo, fairground rides and countless food and drink stands
Attend Dulles High School, being paired up with American students and attending classes and lunch with them
Do bowling, laser tag, arcades and go on a ropes obstacles course at Main Event Entertainment
Go shopping in a huge shopping mall as well as in Walmart and Target
Explore the NASA Johnson Space Centre, seeing everything from Moon rock to real astronauts training, the famous Saturn V rocket to a replica of the International Space Station
Attend Texan landmarks such as Buc-ees, Whataburger and Arby’s
Explore downtown Houston as well as museums such as the Houston Museum of Natural Science (interactive exhibits and fascinating fossils) and the Lone Star Flight Museum (hangars full of planes, flight simulators and a guided tour)
Go to a Varsity volleyball game and an American Football game
Travelling in style on a classic American yellow school bus.

Finally, we would like to take the time to thank all those that helped make this trip so successful.

Mrs McMahon – for being the organiser and speaker for us on the American side of the Atlantic and for going above and beyond to make this trip a stand out, we could not have done it without her!
Principal Stewart – for allowing this school exchange to take place and put the students at such ease!
Major Hawn – for being our yellow American school bus driver for the week, allowing us access to a real US military base and for putting up with the constant noise from all of our excitement!
Dr Bird – for allowing this exchange to take place, for overseeing the planning and organisation processes and for helping with all the finances and paperwork!

Alongside this, we would like to say a final thank you to all the other staff at Dulles High School for being so welcoming and accommodating of both the students and us – our students loved every second of this trip and have made lifelong memories because of you!

Mr Thaper, Mr Sanders and Miss Morgan

You can read more about the Texas Trip from the following student articles:

Ben Yarnell – 10 Galahad
Daniel Soffee – 10 Nelson
Lucas Southall – 11 William