Rouen & Normandy with your class
Rouen packs an extraordinary amount of France into a single walkable city. Its Gothic cathedral, the one Monet painted again and again, rises over a maze of half-timbered streets, the astronomical Gros-Horloge spans a medieval thoroughfare, and the old market square marks the spot where Joan of Arc was put to death. For a language group, the whole historic centre becomes a classroom: compact, atmospheric and full of things worth talking about in French.
The heart of the week is a structured language programme of nine hours spread across three afternoons, delivered in three differentiated level groups so that complete beginners, confident B1+/B2 speakers and near-native students are all stretched appropriately. Lessons are entirely oral and interactive, role-play, debates, guided discussion and game-based vocabulary work, and run to a deliberate phone-free policy. A single creative project (a podcast, song or travel journal) runs as a thread through the week, giving students something concrete to build, rehearse and perform.
Mornings take the group out into the city for guided visits, each paired with French-language activity sheets and real-world vocabulary missions. Students retrace history at the Historial Jeanne d'Arc, explore one of Europe's rare surviving plague cemeteries, and study Norman and Impressionist masterpieces at the fine-arts museum before describing a chosen work aloud in French. Evenings stay sociable, with cohesion games, cultural quiz nights and project rehearsals at the hotel, building toward a final presentation and a closing treasure hunt through the old town.
Trip highlights
An immersive, audio-guided journey through the Historial Jeanne d'Arc, retracing the trial of Joan of Arc inside a former archbishop's palace
A guided visit to the Aître Saint-Maclou, one of the few preserved Black Death cemeteries in Europe
A self-guided treasure hunt through the historic centre, solving cultural and linguistic riddles in small teams
Curriculum links
Practical information
- Setting: Rouen, Normandy, France; compact historic centre with all sights within walking distance
- Board: breakfast and dinner at the hotel, with packed lunches during daytime activities
- Lessons: 9 hours of French across three afternoons, three differentiated level groups, fully oral and interactive
- Supervision: professional on-site guides for visits, teaching staff for lessons, observation sheets and activity booklets provided throughout
- Phone policy: a "zero phone" approach is maintained across visits and lessons
- Currency: Local currency is the Euro (€); spending money recommended
- On the Move is the officially accredited school trips provider for the European Schools in Belgium; every trip has a dedicated project manager with 24/7 emergency support.
A day by day
✏️ This is an example timetable — we can adapt the destination, programme, duration and budget to suit your group.
Students come home with…
- noticeably more confident spoken French, a finished group project they wrote and performed themselves, a vivid grasp of medieval and Impressionist Normandy, and real practice using the language in situ, asking, describing, debating and presenting.
In pictures
Cultural Stays - your questions
History, art, civics, languages and religious studies all benefit. Bastogne suits primary P5 groups studying WWII; The Hague suits civics and international relations; Berlin, Aachen and Málaga are ideal for secondary history and arts groups.
Yes. We arrange expert local guides for museums, monuments and walking tours, in English or French as you prefer.
The Belgian Ardennes — Bastogne programme is specifically designed for P5 (ages 10–11), with content pitched carefully for that age. Other destinations in this category suit secondary groups.
Return travel, central accommodation, all entries and guided visits, supervision, insurance and your On the Move coordinator.