young leaders

2020 L&E Programmes Announced

1 October 2019

Active Header L&E

Learn & Experience inspire & nurture Young Global Leaders (8-16) with our award winning World Camps, Teen Travel & YGL programmes.

“Bringing The World’s Youth Together Since 2009”

Message from Sam Ridgway, Director…

I am delighted to announce the 2020 L&E Programme…

2019 has been an amazing year with so much happening.  We have been incredibly proud of all programmes and are so heartened to hear the wonderful feedback we’ve had.

10 years of L&E has allowed us to evolve to become the unique and trusted provider that we are today.   We have a few changes that we are very excited to tell you about.

L&E World Camps, Young Global Leaders and Teen Travel can be combined in 2020 for a 2, 4 or 6 week summer of a lifetime.

L&E World Camp

L&E World Camps

Our famous World Camp for 8 -15 year olds will again be offering 2 weeks & a 4 week block.  The camp will continue to have the same emphasis of bringing together children from around the world immersed with Native English speakers as well as experiencing true British Culture  (We will continue to limit the amount of any one nationality to keep the camps balanced). 

English is spoken exclusively conversationally and the L&E World Camp environment will create it’s special magic by offering Adventure, Sport & Creative activities alongside our L&E Extras plus our incredible Evening Activities programme and weekend excursions.

The L&E Extra Programme (12 hour specialist coaching) will continue to be available (1 week maximum each):

  • Football School
  • Tennis Academy
  • Horse Riding
  • Young Global Leaders & Life Skills (13-15)
  • Performing Arts
  • English Language Course

Click for more info about L&E World Camps

Future Plan

L&E Camps have always had an emphasis on cultural understanding and developing personal skills however, we have now decided to emphasise the “Young Global Leaders” aspect.  The YGL & Life Skills Course (see below) will be available for 13-15 year olds but there will still be a YGL focus for the rest of the camp.

As our long term aim is to have L&E World Camps in multiple countries around the world we have decided to keep to one venue in the UK for 2020.  It will mean we will be able keep the quality of provision very high with all our experienced staff in one place.  We are delighted to announce our long term partnership with Aysgarth School will continue and look forward to releasing more details about our new camp in British Columbia, Canada for 2021.

World Camp UK Aysgarth School

Dates and Locations 2020

Aysgarth School, N. Yorks:

  • 5th July – 18th July, 2020 (2 weeks)
  • 19th July – 1st August, 2020 (2 weeks)
  • 5th July – 1st August, 2020 (4 weeks)

L&E World Camp Canada

New Locations for 2021

British Columbia, Canada (Coming 2021)

L&E Teen Travel

L&E Teen Travel

For 2020 we are excited to offer our Teen Travel programmes to 13 -16 years olds both in Spring and Summer.   There will be 3 styles of trip; Intrepid, Voyager & Adventurer visiting UK, Europe and North America.

L&E Teen Travel gives young people the life skills for their future journey.

The focus is to prepare and inspire young people for any travelling they do in the future. It’s a chance for them to step out into the world and learn life changing and practical skills with the freedom of feeling safe with our experienced guides.

Click for more info about L&E Teen Travel

UK Intrepid Teen Travel

1. Teen Travel Intrepid

Teen Travel Intrepid Trips are like no other… Teens are in charge of their own experience. Exploring in groups of 5-10 with other teens from across the World.  They will be accompanied by L&E Travel Mentors but THEY are in control of:

  • their own Budget
  • their own Itinerary
  • their own Accommodation
  • their own Transport
  • their own Food

2. Teen Travel Voyager

Teen Travel Voyager will be a scheduled trip where most elements are pre-planned.  There will still be a focus on allowing teens to think for themselves and make decisions on their itinerary but with a more structured timetable.

3. Teen Travel Adventurer

Teen Travel Adventurer is an adventure activity focussed travel experience with the same ethos as our Voyager programme.

Snow Sports Teen Travel

Teen Travel 2020

*Other dates may be available upon enquiry

L&E Young Global Leaders

L&E Young Global Leaders

L&E World Camps and Teen Travel are designed to develop Young Leaders.  However, we have a few specialist programmes that go a little deeper into what it means to be a Young Global Leader and how we can improve our skills and understanding

YGL & Life Skills Course at L&E World Camps

The YGL & Life Skills Course is for 13-15 year olds and is offered as a 1 week programme part of a 2 week World Camp.

There is a focus on leadership and teamwork as well as recognising vital life skills including:

  • Honesty and integrity
  • Positive attitude, motivation, ability to learn
  • Dependability and responsibility
  • Adaptability and flexibility
  • Ability to take constructive feedback
  • Hard work and ethics

The course will also include our amazing overnight Wilderness Experience.

Young Global Leaders Spark Series

YGL Spark Series

  • Social Responsibility
  • Passion
  • Authenticity
  • Resilience
  • Knowledge

YGL Spark is a series of speaker & workshop events, which will be held at community venues around the world. The aim is to celebrate and connect the very best thinkers, doers and innovators from the world to share their journey and inspire a new audience. YGL Spark is an opportunity for young people to take to the stage and talk about the issues that matter to them.

L&E will be hosting the YGL Spark Series in different cities around the world.  We will be announcing the 2020 & 2021 schedule very soon. Participating cities so far:

  • Helsinki
  • Hong Kong
  • Washington
  • Oslo
  • Edinburgh
  • Vancouver

If you are interested in the YGL Spark Series coming to your city then please be in touch.

YGL School Workshops

L&E is proud to provide classroom workshops for schools (ages 8-16). Focusing on critical thinking, communication, self-awareness, and empathy building.  Our workshops are presented by our charismatic and professional staff who make our workshops entertaining, engaging and fun while catering to different learning styles.

Click for more info about L&E Young Global Leaders

EARLY BOOKING DISCOUNT

We are offering our loyal customer Early Booking Discounts across all our programmes. 

  • 8% Discount if 40% Deposit paid (Coupon: 2020EARLYDEP)

  • 15% Discount for Full Payment (Coupon: 2020EARLYFULL)

This will be available until 31st October, 2019. 

Payment will be due upon registration online. Full Refunds will be available up to 1st June, 2020.

*Bank Transfers can be accepted if you contact info@learnexperience.co.uk for an invoice.

*Children who attend a school within the United Kingdom can apply for a 30-100% Scholarship.  We have limited places for British children

There will be no more discounts available after 1st November.

Due to the fact that we now have only one venue we expect fill places very quickly.   We will be offering a strict first-come-first-serve policy so we highly recommend you take advantage of this fantastic offer.

BOOK NOW & RECEIVE A DISCOUNT

Be in touch…

If you have any questions about our programmes then please don’t hesitate to be in touch…

Warm Wishes,

Sam Ridgway (Director) & The L&E Team

YGL Blog 2019

17 July 2019

Monday 15th July

The L&E Young Global Leaders programme is a very unique opportunity for young people from around the world to come together to learn and understand what makes good young leaders.  In our small team we have participants from Hong Kong, Spain, Russia, Italy, Sweden, Germany, France and UK.  Now if that isn’t what Young Global Leaders should be all about then I don’t what is!!?

We started on Monday morning with a brief questionnaire about our expectations and what we felt our strengths and weaknesses were.  We then spent quite a bit of time introducing each other and getting to know one another.  My gosh…these young leaders are so incredibly interesting.  Their dreams and ambitions are astounding but with a firm belief and commitment to achieve them.

We then looked at some well known leaders and discussed their attributes…Trump, Merkel, Messi, Sir Alex Ferguson, Mandela and Greta Thunberg.

It was certainly an interesting discussion as you can imagine!

The afternoon session included some camp fire cooking skills that will hopefully come in useful for the Wilderness trip later on in the week…

Tuesday, 16th July

Tuesday brought some problem solving to the table.  It was a team effort but there were certainly some characters that came to the fore with some astute leadership skills…all with different styles mind you.

You may have heard of Edward de Bono!? A Maltese modern day psychologist who came up with an interesting theory about different ways of thinking within a team.

When making a collective decision it’s always good to have members of the team who behave and look at things differently.  It’s called The 6 Thinking Hats.

Six distinct directions are identified and assigned a color. The six directions are:

  • Managing Blue – what is the subject? what are we thinking about? what is the goal? Can look at the big picture.
  • Information White – considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
  • Emotions Red – intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification).
  • Discernment Black – logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and conservative. Practical, realistic.
  • Optimistic response Yellow – logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony. Sees the brighter, sunny side of situations.
  • Creativity Green – statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes. Thinks creatively, outside the box.

This was an incredibly rewarding session where the team were given the task of planning a birthday party and designing the Best Summer Camp (pretty tough competition out there I’ve heard!!??)

They were given different “hats” to see if they were able to think differently and also were able to choose the “hat” that they were most comfortable with.

We hope that the skills learnt will be beneficial to them for the rest of their lives.

Wednesday brings a very exciting proposition…The Wilderness Experience.  Plans have been made and now just the expedition itself is there to complete.  We look forward to telling you all about it tomorrow.  Till then….

Click for YGL Photos

L&E Newsletter – Dec ’18

5 December 2018

November was a busy month that brought, amongst other things the introduction of our new booking system which will hopefully allow L&E to move (belatedly) into the 21st century.  Families will have their own accounts where they can see their payment plans, make personal requests and update data to allow for an easy progression to camp.  Please be in touch with the L&E Office if you have any queries about the new system.

The L&E Roadshow got going with Julie visiting Copenhagen (see below for full story). I will be visiting New York in December and will look forward to tell you all about it in the January Newsletter. I wish you all a great festive season and really hope to see many of you in the New Year! SR

L&E Review

We are a small company that don’t have a massive marketing budget to spread the word of L&E. Therefore, we really rely on our loyal families to help us get the message out to other families.  Word of mouth has always been our main source of new families and we truly appreciate all your testimonials and recommendations.  It would be wonderful to have a permanent record on an independent forum where you can leave your honest and open reviews.  We have review pages on Google and Facebook so would be absolutely delighted if you could spare a few moments.  Many thanks in advance.

L&E in Copenhagen

Our first road trip of the season took us to the beautiful Danish capital, Copenhagen.  It was their first cold snap of the year but clear skies made it a thoroughly enjoyable trip.  

We were delighted to host 2 L&E information evenings at schools in Rungsted which is just north of Copenhagen.  The first school we visited was Rungsted Skole which is the school L&E camper Freja attends.  Along with Freja and her mother we met some new families and spent an evening telling them all about the 2019 L&E programmes.  The next evening we visited was Rungsted Private Realskole where we again met some lovely new families.  There were lots of great questions from the parents and children from ‘what is the food like’ to ‘how do we pick our activities’.  The families said how great it was to have someone explain how all L&E programmes work in person and how this really put their minds at ease about sending their children to a camp in another country.  

We have found these information evenings to be very helpful for families trying to decide upon summer programmes for their children.  They give parents and children the opportunity to hear a presentation from a L&E representative and ask any questions they might have, that includes the children asking questions!  If you would like L&E to come and visit your school, town or city then please get in touch with Julie. 

Little/Cool Sam’s L&E Working Journey

I have to tell you a quick story…Sam B has worked with us for the last 9 years and has been a key component of why our camps are so successful.  He is loved by everyone – staff/parents and most importantly, the kids.  He has always been known as “Little Sam” to differentiate from myself (who is ever so slightly taller!!)  However, in my eyes he will always be “Cool Sam”.  The main being reason back in 2012 we had a magical theme night where, inevitably I found myself hidden under a sheet in the front hall while the children searched high and low for me.  A few children rushed up near me (not knowing I was under the sheet) declaring that they’d received a clue from Sam.  One child exclaimed “Do you mean Boss Sam or Cool Sam!!??”……  My ego was crushed for a few moments but, to be fair I definitely can’t compete on the coolness factor with our beloved Little Sam.  Here’s his story in his own words….

I was very happy to have the chance to write about my experiences working with L&E over the years. I’ve been working with L&E since it began almost 10 years ago now! So I’ve had many great summers at camp and seen the impact the camp has on kids as they return year after year. I came to my first camp when I was only 19 years old and at that stage the camp was still working out what it would become in the years to come. We had some really great kids that first year, although we almost had as many staff as kids that year, which did make the staff vs camp dodgeball quite easy! As has always been the case year on year, the kids that are attracted to this camp are always great fun. An amazing aspect of camp is that each week is a completely new experience. While you may have the same size camp, in the same place, with the same staff, the camp will still feel unique, as what makes a camp is the kids and each week is made up of a new, totally unique set of characters, whose mix of personalities make the camp what it is.

I came to work at  L&E   through my family, both my two sisters and my father worked that first year and many of our friends have worked at the camp over those 10 years. The camp has always had a very intimate, family feel to it and that is something that I think was fostered in those early camps. At that stage there was roughly a 2:1 child to staff ratio and it really did feel like one big family. That ideal has largely remained at  L&E through the years and is what makes this camp so special. Despite that,  L&E  has grown every year I have been there and has added new locations and experiences to the original North Camp, such as the new South Camp and teen travel.  It would be so difficult to pick a favorite memory from my years at  L&E, however I think perhaps the most rewarding part of my time at  L&E has been to see so many children grow up over the years. I’ve seen many kids come for their first camp as little 8 year olds, very shy and unsure of how their week is going to work out, and then return for the next 6 years, making life long friends and growing up into really great people. There would be too many kids to name, but a particular highlight has been to see the likes of Tom and Baptiste, who were once kids on the camp, return as staff and be such great tutors. Apart from making me feel old ? that just highlights that the camp has an impact for kids beyond the week they spend with us over the summer. It has been an eventful first 10 years for  L&E  and I hope that the next 10 years will be the same ?

L&E FEATURE – Tennis Academy 

Adventure, Sport and Creative activities are always offered at our Camps but there are few L&E Extra courses that are a little more specialised.  Here we look in detail at our Tennis Academy…

South Camp only (1 Week max)

Just as Wimbledon, the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world ends for the year in nearby London, boys and girls will have the opportunity to improve their tennis skills at L&E Tennis Academy at South Camp.  

Along with expert tuition from our tennis coaches and first rate facilities at Forres Sandle Manor School the players have the perfect setting to improve their racquet skills.  As well as perfecting court skills the players will receive seminars on fitness training, nutrition, respect and patience.  

To ensure this is a week the players will never forget we will take them to visit the famous All England Club, Wimbledon for a tour.  They will get up close and personal with the Championship trophies and clothing & equipment donated by many of the top players.  Of course they will get to see Centre Court and the player’s entrance and even get a tase of what it is like behind the scenes in the BBC Studio.  

“Expert tennis coaching with a trip to see Centre court at the world famous Wimbledon”

  • 5 day Coaching programme delivered by qualified coaches
  • Tennis seminars on fitness training, nutrition & respect.
  • Elite Tennis facilities at private school with all equipment provided for the week
  • Tour of the All England Club, Wimbledon including Centre Court visit
  • Exclusive L&E Tennis training kit 

See previous L&E Newsletter