Kent Place exchanges students with Australian school

SUMMIT, NJ — Kent Place recently held a successful student-exchange program with St. Peter’s Girls’ School, in Stonyfell, South Australia. Five Kent Place sophomores — Sofia Handzy of Westfield, Clare Buckley of Maplewood, Lizzie Herr of Summit, Lane Patterson of Short Hills and Sophie Schmitz of New Vernon — were selected by an application process to serve as hosts, and to travel to Australia during Kent Place’s spring break.

First, from Jan. 5 to Feb. 4, five 10th-graders from St. Peter’s lived with the Kent Place hosts, attending classes and taking part in extracurricular activities as Kent Place students. While in the United States, each St. Peter’s student lived like a sister to her host, went on family outings and experienced life as an American teen. The St. Peter’s girls also made presentations to various student groups at Kent Place; they visited the Primary School to speak with second-graders who are studying Australia as part of their social studies curriculum.

The five Kent Place students then attended St. Peter’s over the two-week spring break in March and for an additional two weeks after. The students wore the school’s uniforms and immersed themselves in Australian life.

“I absolutely loved participating in the Australian exchange program,” Buckley said. “It was an amazing experience! I got to visit Sydney, beautiful beaches, pet kangaroos and see koalas. My favorite part was bonding with my host family and Bella, my exchange student. This experience has made me so excited to travel abroad in the future, and I’m really interested in finding another independent global trip so I can continue growing my independence.”

“The exchange was an amazing experience,” Patterson said. “My favorite part of the exchange was all of the people I got to meet. It’s crazy to think that I have friends all the way on the other side of the planet! I think this program is an incredible opportunity and anyone who has the chance should take advantage of it.”

St. Peter’s is very similar to Kent Place; it’s an all-girls school, with a co-ed preschool, and was also founded in 1894. It has a robotics team and just completed a massive construction project: a new middle school.

“The Australia exchange program was by far the best experience of my life,” Herr said. “I definitely want to study abroad in the future because, not only have I have learned so much about American and Australian culture, I have also learned so much about myself. It was such a great way to learn outside of the classroom and an experience I will never forget!”

Kent Place global learning coordinator Nathan Lutz and Upper School Director Elizabeth Woodall have been planning this partnership since the fall of 2016, when Richard Lisle, deputy principal and head of St. Peter’s Middle School, came to visit Kent Place while scouting North American locations for potential exchanges.

“Despite a common language and a fairly similar culture, I took joy in hearing the girls marvel at all the differences they noted with each other’s language and customs,” Lutz said. “Most people consider that only the actual exchange participants benefit from such a program, but in our case, the entire school community was enriched by the presence of these five vivacious young women, who were so excited to be here and experience the Kent Place way.”

This is St. Peter’s first exchange with a school from the United States. Currently, it participates in programs with France, Canada and Japan, and one with China will take place soon. Although this is Kent Place’s first exchange of this type, school administrators are hopeful more will occur in the future.

  Kent Place School