Das kleine Malheur hat Auroras Freude, die King’s Hall School in Taunton zu besuchen, keinen Abbruch getan. Der Vater schrieb:

“Dear all,

I am writing you with the promised feedback to Aurora’s stay in England.

Many months have passed and the world looks quite different since we were last in contact.

I would therefore take the opportunity to give a feedback to both King’s Hall Taunton, as well as Toechter and Soenhne as a recruitment agency.

Our daughter asked us to go abroad in 2018. Why, and alas we will never know (and Harry Potter was not a part of it!).

She had a close-knit group of friends, but was ready to leave that in order to explore the unknown.

We found Toechter and Sohne through Google, but did our own research independent of your agency and knowing that there is a commercial interest in matching a pupil/student with a school.

I cannot underline enough the value Toechter and Sohne brought to our school search, independent of our own efforts to find the right school for our daughter.

Our impression of Tochter and Sohne was at the time being that there was a genuine interest in finding not only a match – but The Match – between a pupil and whichever academic aspiration he/she may have, and the right kind of school.

The three or four choices we were given after interviewing Aurora were all brilliant, and making a final choice was hard.

King’s Hall School was preliminary chosen at face value for three reasons:

1. Logistics
2. Uniform colors
3. Swimming pool

I bought as a Christmas gift a trip to Taunton for both mother and Aurora to visit the school. At King’s Hall we were received as we had been family and long acquaintances. In addition to showing us all the facilities, we were also given an in-depth impression of how living as a student there was – on a personal level.

Aurora’s stay at the school, while we parents were enjoying the restaurant scene in Taunton, was also a significant contributing factor to why saying “yes” was the only option.

Although professional, the visit at King’s Hall felt genuine and personal nonetheless.

It did not take long until Aurora’s language skills far surpassed what we had hoped for, for her stay. Aurora found friends,  linguistic challenges as well as other school challenges to her liking. All in all, King’s Hall offered a life which was unimaginable to both her as well as her parents at the beginning of the school year.

I cannot remember once that she was complaining being away from home, missing her parents’ cooking nor anything else. …

… I have asked her many times if she misses King’s Hall and in some way she does. There are particularly three thing that comes up:

1. The canteen
2. The maths
3. The library

Norwegian schools have no canteen at primary levels. Our daughter is quite accustomed to good food at home – nevertheless she found the kitchen at King’s Hall something special.

Back in Norway she has excelled in mathematics, and even correcting her teachers in some of the tasks given. This is all thanks to King’s Hall brilliant curriculum and teachers.

Being granted full access to a school library at King’s Hall was the third awakening for Aurora. Even though there is a new librarian at King’s Hall, I would like to inform that Aurora – thanks to all the experiences from King’s Hall – is one out of four new library assistants at her local school, and she loves it.

All in all, we could not have asked more from both Toechter and Soehne and King’s Hall Taunton than our hopes before August 2019. She still carries an air of self-confidence and independence we dared not to hope for before starting her stay.

In lack of the opportunity to say a personal thank you, please consider this e-mail as a personal gratitude for your time invested in our daughter’s future.

Best regards,

C. Nicolaisen, Oslo”