Monday 28 May 2012

Dragon Boat Festival 2012

The Dragon Boats

Some of the stalls
LSI has a plethora of talent among the staff and teachers, and recently some of the ‘crafty’ types joined forces to create 'The Craft Committee' and set up at the 2012 Dragon Boat Festival to raise money for charity.  The Dragon Boat festival is run by the Rotary Club who raise funds and work towards helping those less fortunate.  Their motto is 'Service above Self'.

The 2012 festival was held over a slightly overcast weekend in the middle of May. Luckily for everyone though, the Saturday was blessed with sporadic sun which made things more bearable, particularly for the dragon boat contestants who had to be on the water anyway.

Dragon boat racing is an ancient Chinese tradition and races are still held in the Far East on a regular basis, always exciting the watching audience with the noise and fun. Each forty-foot boat is paddled by up to sixteen people with a drummer at the helm keeping the rhythm for rowers.   You can see in the photo how close the race can get!

The Craft Committee was held in a beer tent (thank you very much) and was the idea of Caroline (Gwatkin), Rotarian and teacher (among other roles).  Joining Caroline were Ceri Tipler, Claire Greenway, Cristina Purcell, Alan Daysh, Sue Hodgson and ex teachers Abbi Headon (wife of Jeremy Catlin), Margaret Ferguson and Diana Collins.

As you can see by the photos, a lot of fun was had by both the contestants and the stall holders and hopefully all the visitors.

The Committee members (a few are missing!)

IELTS - new candidate identity verification system

On the 26th May, LSI introduced the new verification system for the IELTS test.

IELTS is committed to ensuring the highest quality to their testing system and the care they give their customers.  They have therefore introduced new measures to protect the integrity of the testing.  For more information about the new verification system please see:

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Workshop in Turkey


Angela in Turkey
Angela in Turkey

Our Marketing agent for Turkey, Italy and Switzerland; Angela Evans, recently attended the ALPHE 2012 workshop in Istanbul, where educators have the chance to meet and get to know student advisors from all over, but in particular from Turkey and Russia.  Angela says “It was great to meet everyone and I also had the opportunity of introducing our new self-catering student house, which was very well received, as well as letting everyone know about the forthcoming Cambridge course option which we are launching in September 2012. This was only the second time I have been over to Istanbul but I had an excellent trip and was looked after so well by everyone I met.”  She goes on to say “Portsmouth is one of the lesser known student destinations in this region, and I really enjoyed introducing our city and showing off what it has to offer!”