The Great North American Road Trip

Each year, the staff team from Reach Cambridge summer programs are lucky enough to travel the globe, visiting schools all over the world to tell students and teachers about the amazing summer school experience we offer. These trips are a real highlight for us – not only do they enable us to see a whole host of incredible places everywhere from Lebanon to Australia but the trips also give the Reach Cambridge staff the chance to see past and future summer program students in their own schools! In just a few weeks time, Reach Cambridge summer school staff will be leaving England to explore Canada and the USA – here are just a few of the things we are planning to do on our very exciting trip!   Canada, ‘Land of the Maple Tree’, will be our first stop. We visit Canada each year and we simply love it. We will fly in to Toronto and we cannot wait to explore everything the city has to offer. We will be visiting a number of schools in the Toronto area before beginning our road trip around the stunning Lake Ontario region to visit a number of schools where we hope to see some students who attended the international summer program in 2013 and 2014! Seeing old faces is always a highlight of our international trips as we love to hear about what our students have been doing since the Reach Cambridge program, and learn about their exciting plans for the future! Along the way, we will of course be sure to have plenty of coffee and doughnuts from Tim Horton’s (the doughnuts just aren’t the same here in England!). Last year, we were lucky enough to visit the stunning Algonquin Provincial Park during our free time. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and the peaceful atmosphere is quite a contrast to the hustle and bustle of Toronto, particularly as we were lucky enough to catch the vibrant red and orange autumnal leaves adorning the trees. We hope we make it just in time to catch this natural wonder again this year! After our Canadian road trip it will be time to head southwards to the USA for the next part of our North American adventure. We will fly from Toronto to Philadelphia, a region we have only visited once before, so we are excited to visit some schools in the area to spread the word about the excellent international experience offered at Reach Cambridge summer school. We also look forward to exploring the delights of the city. No trip to Philadelphia would be complete without a visit to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the US Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed! All that history will no doubt make us hungry, and we hear that soft pretzels are a Philadelphia must – we cannot wait to sample them! The next stop on the great Reach Cambridge summer school North American road trip is another well-known city in Pennsylvania – Pittsburgh, also known as the City of Bridges, with the number of bridges in the region estimated at nearly 2,000! The city may be home to the Steelers American football team, but more importantly it is home to a number of students who have attended the summer program in 2013 and 2014! We are extremely excited about visiting their schools and seeing some familiar faces, and we hope that some of their friends will decide to join us for another unforgettable Reach Cambridge summer school in 2015! On our visit last fall, we stopped by the stunning Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh and ventured all the way up to the 42^nd floor to experience the incredible views of the city from the top. The Cathedral of Learning houses study spaces and classrooms, and even libraries and theaters, and the unique learning environment is impressive enough to make even a Cambridge scholar envious! Then it will be time to return home, and Cambridge, with its amazing architecture, quaint tea shops, and plentiful green spaces, really isn’t such a bad place to come home to. However, we are always on the lookout for new places to explore and new schools to visit – so please do get in touch by emailing us at info@reachcambridge.com if you would like us to visit your school and show us your country!