International Summer School in Cornwall – The Penryn Campus
Find out what it is like on our International Summer School programme on the Penryn Campus in Cornwall
We are Cornwall’s only British Council accredited language school!
After several years building and developing our special summer school programmes, we are very proud to now be based on the prestigious Penryn Campus, part of Falmouth University.
Let us give you a flavour of a typical day and week on our premium, 5-star residential summer camp…
Location & accommodation
Being based on the Penryn Campus provides us with everything we need in one place: modern classrooms, fantastic dining facilities with food cooked on-campus, cool social space for our students to relax and the options of comfortable residential accommodation or nearby host family accommodation.
Plus, we are right next to the sea and the vibrant town of Falmouth with its rich maritime history.
Regardless of whether you choose our residential accommodation or you choose to stay with one of our host families, you will enjoy exactly the same programme during the day. The only difference will be in the evenings when those students staying with host families will get picked up by their host families and hang out with them in the evenings.
The start of the day!
As many of you will know, English people love breakfast! We make no exception for our international summer school. In fact, all our meals on campus are amazing and cooked from scratch on site.
At the heart of the Penryn Campus is the Stannary Dining Hall with their wonderful team of chefs and catering staff.
From 8am each morning, students will be able to go and choose from a wide selection of fresh breakfast foods: fruit, cereals, juice, toast & pastries, jam, tea & coffee.
At the weekend, there will also be the option for a full English breakfast with bacon, sausages, egg, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast. A perfect feast to set you up for a busy and active day ahead.
Your English classes
Our English classes run from 9am – 12pm, Monday to Friday, giving students 15 hours per week of expert English language tuition.
All our classes are in small groups with students who are a similar age and level to you (before you arrive, we will send you a short test to complete so we can have an idea of your English language level and your aims while you are here).
We have our own teaching block at the university for our English lessons. It is a brilliant building next to the accommodation and the dining hall. With modern, spacious classrooms and internet connected whiteboards, it provides the perfect environment for students to feel relaxed and confident to practise and develop their English language skills.
At Language Tree, we use a communicative approach in the classroom – maximising opportunities for students to speak in English about interesting, real-life topics.
During the summer, we offer separate English classes for adults and junior students.
We divide the morning English classes into 2 x 90min lessons. Our first lesson runs from 9am – 10.30am. All students receive a National Geographic course book to accompany their course.
Then, there is a short break before our second lesson from 10.30am – 12pm.
Our second lesson is focused around themes linked to the culture and history of Cornwall, England and the UK. Our teachers love to immerse you in our local culture and history. Cornwall has such a long and rich Celtic history that students really enjoy learning about.
These lessons link closely to our excursion programme. Students will get to learn about the history of places like St Michael’s Mount, the Minack Theatre, Eden Project and Geevor Mine. Through learning about these places in the mornings, we find students get so much more out of the excursions.
Lunch & afternoon excursions
We head off for our afternoon excursions from 1.15pm each afternoon.
This leaves time for a tasty lunch before departure between 12pm – 1pm.
One of the fantastic benefits we have organised with the Penryn Campus is to provide all our students with a cooked lunch on site before departure.
We are so pleased to be incorporating a proper lunch into our summer camp this year instead of packed lunches.
This means we can reduce the waste associated with packed lunches while giving our students a fantastic choice of options for their lunch.
Our afternoon excursions provide one of the key reasons why students come to study with Language Tree for their International Summer Camp.
The range of excursions and activities we provide is above and beyond what you can experience at any other summer camp in the UK. Just download our Summer 2025 timetable here to get an insight into our Language Tree International Summer School programme.
This is the region where I grew up and it gives us so much pleasure to show off all the wonderful things you can do in Cornwall.
Our Summer Evening Activities
By the end of the afternoon, if all has gone to plan, you will be feeling wonderfully exhausted!
Our executive coach will be bring you back to campus for some time to relax and refresh before our evening activities.
Supper time is around 6.30 – 7.30pm. The Stannary provide a 2-course supper with a range of options to suit all dietary needs and tastes.
After our action-packed days, the aim of the evening is to provide a gentler pace and a range of activities depending on your energy and interests. We have board games and quiz nights, movies, evening BBQs in the hidden garden and for those with limitless energy, we love an evening football match mixing together all our different international students!
For those students staying with host families, your host families will be there to pick you up when we return from our afternoon excursion. You will then get to relax and immerse yourself in a real English family experience.
So, there we go!
This is what summer looks like with Language Tree in Cornwall.
Any questions?
Please just get in touch
We would love to hear from you 🙂
