Stays insured by
- About us
- Contact us
Stays insured by
United Kingdom
Stay in Sydenham, London with Nicola's Family
I worked as a geo-environmental engineer before becoming a full-time mum to my three children. My family moved to Germany when I was 10, and so I learned German in my teens and enjoyed visiting Germany in the (boarding) school holidays, and I spent my gap year working in Germany before I went to study Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. I am passionate about offering my home and teaching abilities to a student wanting to improve their English in a family homestay and full immersion environment, whatever their age!
I have learnt a lot about education while raising my family. I even home-educated two of my children for two years. Recently, I have been working as a teaching assistant in local primary schools and volunteering at my daughter's democratic school, where I help in the forest school and with reading practice. I very much enjoy working with young people and I prefer teaching one-on-one or in small groups, rather than as a class teacher. In fact, I plan to train as a Montessori teacher, studying part-time over the next few years.
My husband, Michael, is a Chartered (Electrical) Engineer who works as a consulting engineer in the building industry and is currently working at The Palace of Westminster (Parliament). He works from home for the majority of the week. Our eldest 20-year-old son, Zak, is undertaking a 4-year degree apprenticeship program with Dyson and so no longer lives at home. Our second son (17y), Eddie, has left school and is undertaking a 3-year apprenticeship locally in vehicle maintenance to follow his passion of restoring and maintaining classic cars. Eddie also loves music and plays electric guitar. Our daughter, Luci (14y), is dyslexic and attends a pioneering new school called 'The New School'! She loves to draw, create art and cook, and she plays in a netball team weekly with her friends. Luci is learning German with an online tutor because languages are not offered at her school.
In general, the homestay shall be booked in blocks of 1 week, with arrivals happening on a Sunday (after 12 noon), and departures happening on a Saturday (by 4 pm). So 1 and 2 week stays are 6 and 13 nights, respectively. In certain circumstances it might be possible to vary the above, and change the arrival and departure days. This can be discussed and a suitable price reduction or increase agreed between us. Please book at least 4 nights if you are only booking a part week rather than a full week (Sunday to Saturday) during the summer months of May to August.
Please consider booking additional activities and services to make the most of your homestay experience. A nice balance between at-home 1:1 lessons and/or general activities and cultural trips in the local area and/or London, will ensure the student does not get bored or miss their family too much!
You will never be sharing the guest bedroom with a person you don’t know. The homestays are either for a single student, or 2 booked together (either as friends or family members, and assuming that they are mature enough to commit to not speaking in native language to one another). If booking for 2 students together and they can share the lessons and activities, I am able to offer a 25% discount across the whole booking including transfers, accommodation, and extras, so long as both students are booked for at least 15 hours of lessons or activities, or 3 London trips (incl. 1 list A outing) each week.
The guest room is located on the top floor and has a bunk bed (providing 2 single beds), so we can accommodate 2 students (as friends or family members). The guest bedroom has views towards Crystal Palace and central London and is just over 3m by 3m in size. It is next to our son Eddie’s bedroom and the 2nd bathroom (containing a shower over a bath). We have a moderately sized front and back garden with grass and we are situated on a relatively quiet residential street at the top of a small hill.
The house is located in Sydenham, which lies in southeast London, and we are well-connected to all of London by buses and a various train stations. There plenty of small independent shops and cafes along the high street, and there are several attractive London parks nearby, such as Mayow Park, Wells Park, Crystal Palace Park, Dulwich Park, Beckenham Place Park, as well as the tranquil Sydenham Hill Woods. The Horniman Museum & Gardens in Forest Hill is a family-friendly, free-to-enter attraction, within walking distance from our home. This much loved attraction offers various anthropology, natural history, and musical instrument galleries, and features a butterfly house, a small aquarium and beautiful, expansive gardens to explore.
On a work or school day the children leave the house between 7.30-8am, but my husband is usually working from home. If the language student is having lessons with me, then we would normally undertake these starting at 9am, after breakfast. I give 1 hour lessons in the guest bedroom at the large desk, and we break in between each lesson, and also for a home-made lunch. If outings to London or the local area have been booked we usually undertake these in the afternoons, so that I can cook and serve a family dinner every evening between about 6 and 8pm, depending upon everyone's schedules. I tend to cook broadly vegetarian meals, but not all family members are vegetarian so we do sometimes serve meat and we all eat fish.
In their free time and at the weekends, the student is free to explore the surrounding area and visit central London by themselves (if old enough), or accompanied by me as an outing, whichever they prefer.
On Monday evenings I sing in a choir at a local church and on Saturday mornings I often do Parkrun (a free timed 5km run) in Crystal Palace Park. The student is most welcome to join me at these two activities if they would be interested. Other free activities available for the student to choose from are walking our dog (if confident to do so), playing on our electric piano or our guitar, doing some arts and crafts at the kitchen table or borrowing a board game or pack of cards to play solo. We have a large TV in the lounge with Netflix available and a selection of DVDs to choose from.
From 630 € / week
+33 7 49 08 56 74