The end of year celebrations capped another great year in which British Study Centres welcomed over 5000 students from over 80 countries to our schools. We would like to thank all of our past and present students in particular, and our agents and partners for making this a most enjoyable year. With your help we have passed many milestones, including the launch of the junior programme in the summer and offering teacher training in Brighton. Through the hard work of our teachers and school staff we were extremely gratified to have been voted in the top 5 schools in Europe in the Language Travel Magazine Star Awards. This really was an unexpected and pleasing accolade to receive. We are now all working extremely hard and preparing to welcome many new students to study at our schools in 2010!

Staff and teachers at British Study Centres London gathered for the school’s annual Christmas dinner, which took place in The Beehive restaurant close to Baker Street. It really was a good choice and everyone seemed to enjoy the food, wine and the atmosphere. This Christmas saw the launch of our annual “best, worst Christmas jumper competition”. Best, worst, I hear you say?!! The aim of the competition was to find the best Christmas jumper. The more tacky and cheap the jumper (worst), the better! Many staff entered and judging the winner was a difficult decision. This was left to James, the School Director and “Christmas” Paul from Student Services. The lucky winner of the competition was one of our Student Services team, Lucy Couvaras. Lucy wore a fetching woolly jumper featuring Father Christmas and a beautiful Christmas tree. Her prize was a bottle of champagne and a trophy. I think staff are already planning their jumpers for next year’s competition!! Thank you to management for organizing this Christmas bash- as you can see from the happy faces in the pictures everyone had a good time. Also, a very big thank you to “Christmas” Paul for all his efforts.

As we look forward to the next year welcoming many new students and a few former students to study at our schools, we will need the support of our excellent teachers, staff, agents and partners more than ever. In April we will open our fourth year-round English language school in Bournemouth, and add a fifth floor to our school in London. The school in Bournemouth provides an exciting alternative for our students in a large coastal resort location with beach and vacation entertainment. The fifth floor at BSC London will provide the school with 7 much needed classrooms and a new language media centre. Based on the success of our junior courses last summer, the junior programme will really step up its efforts in 2010 with courses being offered in two new locations – Ascot and Cheltenham.

We all look forward to the challenges of the New Year and working together to make our schools the best possible, and wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!