A Shame....

I used to be an agent for International House and Embassy CES for more than 10 years and I always appreciated the work of the teacher trainers there. It is a shem that this won't be going on. Any way I wish you all the best and hope to see you in different places where I've got cooperations running.
I also quite liked coming to Hastings with the odd student group myself. There seems to be no more reason to come to Hastings any more, which is a shame as well.

Christine Keegan

This is us in January 2006. I've never learnt more and so intensively than in those 30 days... When teachers do their job with passion there's no chance students won't get involved. Thanks Allan, Anne and Ellie...

International melting pot

Firstly, thanks Allan for setting this up.

I trained as an EFL teacher at International House, Palace Court under Ellie and Lynne, and started teaching my first classes in Hastings in 1998. The intensive CELTA course I took then is something that I remember more vividly than many other years of education. Ellie and Lynne had a huge impact, giving of themselves to make us into teachers. Exhausting, exciting and inspiring. Thank you.

Then, in the summer of 2006, after many years away, I came back and was welcomed into the wonderful staff room at Gensing Manor, now Embassy CES. I was struck by how supportive all the teachers were to me and how positive the atmosphere was. I immediately felt at home. I have never worked with more friendly students or more committed and talented colleagues…and with such high speeds on the Guardian crossword.

Thank you everyone. I’d particularly like to thank Jan for helping me out of a tight spot with a bunch of Russians last year, Steve for always being supportive and Phil the cleaner for being so cheerful.

ABOVE: Lovely pre-intermediate afternoon class July 2006. Libya, China, Italy, Colombia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Libya, Japan and UK.

RIGHT: Dynamic intermediate morning class August 2007. Fascinating discussions and nine different nationalities, UK, China, Spain, Italy, Ivory Coast, South Korea, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic.

BELOW LEFT: Embassy School at Gensing Manor in November 2007.

I’ve really enjoyed my relatively brief time with Embassy and International House. It is truly an international melting pot where people from all over the globe arrive to learn English and then leave with more than that: a wealth of cultural understanding and new friendship. I think it’s a tremendous shame that such a great school with fantastic teachers and marvellous support staff and so much goodwill should be set to close.

Good luck to everyone.

From Korea.

[Korea vs. Togo in World cup 2006]

I'm Dong gun. I was always happy and fine in Hastings.

(without a day when Korea was beated by Switchland in World cup 2006)

And there is a sentimental place for me.

I studied in there with good teachers, good friends and my girlfriend.

I'm missing everybody, garden, a lot of house cheastnuts and fire alarm.

[Touring Han river on a ferry with Hasayo and Jieun(Aug.2007)]

[Trying Korean food which is made of chicken's foot with Mana and Jieun (Sep.2007)]

You gave me a lot of friends. We are still keep in touch and some of friends visited Korea. May you remember Hisayo and Mana. Also I will visit other friends. We made strong friendship in Hastings.

[My parents Jean and Reg in Hastings]

You gave me father and mother.

At the first time I met them. They were just host family.

But they became my father and mother.

[Jieun in market place (Nov.2007)]

[In a restaurant (Aug.2007)]

I love everybody and everythings in Hastings. I was very sad when I heard it's closing, I feel I'm losting a piece of memory. I wish what I heard is a dream. But I know end means new start. So I hope all of you have happy life as past. And someday when I visit Hastings again I'd like to meet you again.

Anyway nobody can take my memory. The school is always there in my mind.

Dong gun.

past-past tense

It’s been almost exactly five years since I left Embassy in Hastings and in that time, although my work-life has changed massively, I always look back at my years in Hastings as a period of learning. It’s very sad to hear that it has been decided that the school should close. It’ll be strange to think about the school in the ‘past-past tense’ and disappointing to know that the teachers, staff and most of all the students will no longer be there creating a small and ever changing community.
I wish you all the very best of luck.
Paul Drury

COLOMBIA

Hello, my name is Sonia Triana, EFL teache, and I spent 2 intense and fantastic months in Hastings and took 4 courses at Embassy in the summer of 2005. I will always have wonderful memories about that experience. Gensing Manor was a multicultural place. The lovely photo on the right was taken from the computer room.

All the staff did their best to help us. At the canteen, at lunch time the Babel Tower began: every language of the world was spoken. I shared lessons with teachers from all over the world and we learned a lot. I have forgotten some instructors names(sorry) but I specially remember Ellie in Methodology, Debb(with her warm smile) in Brush up your English and Debb and Anne in Advanced English and Culture. They are excellent teachers and trainers, each one with their unique personalities, they showed me how the real british people and culture are.

I also had the best host family: Lee and Toni Miles in Hopgarden Close. There I shared every day life with them and with lots of teenagers who spent a couple of weeks in Hastings. Everything was perfect with Toni and Lee who made me feel also relaxed and comfortable in spite of seagulls' "melodies" woke me up every morning :-)

I'm very sorry to know about the news, and I really share your feelings about the end of the Hastings Era.

Those Hastings windows

I agree with Steve that it should be commemorated somehow. Meanwhile .....

some of you may have read this before - I wrote it for the end of Palace Chambers .....

In Poland, where I am now, and probably elsewhere as well, there are a lot of people who know the word 'Windows' from their computers, but not what windows really are.

I first worked at ih Hastings in summer 1978, with just a few months' teaching experience. There was a list of locations to choose from and Hastings was my second choice. (My first choice was Oxford.) I didn't know, and at the time I probably wouldn't have cared, that Oxford was just a summer operation, whereas Hastings was a year-round school, with a teacher-training department, even, and with enlightened and generous provision for in-service training. Anyway, I was happy to be given my second choice. I'd never really been anywhere in south-east England before. And everything about Hastings, starting with the journey from London on one of the old narrow-bodied diesel-electric trains, which some of you will remember, turned out to be far more interesting than I could have imagined. I came back in 1981, in response to a long handwritten letter of invitation. I think it was for two months, and then three, and then four, and I ended up staying eight years.

Eight years of continually expanding horizons and new perceptions. The windows at the front of Palace Chambers - which it used to be called, as some of you will remember - took on a symbolic significance, and I used to spend a lot of time looking out of them, a fact which was occasionally commented on by students and people observing my lessons.