Nuneaton and Bedworth has three twin towns in Europe with which social, cultural, educational, sporting and economic activities take place to encourage and support twinning links and activities between the Borough and Roanne (France), Guadalajara (Spain) and Cottbus (Germany).
Contact Details | Online Services | |
Phone: | Town Twinning Officer 024 7637 6447 | |
Fax: | 0870 600 8300 | |
Email: | ||
Service Unit: | Chief Executive's Office | |
Refer to our Town Twinning page for more information.
Apply for Exchange Visits
Cultural visits for young people take place every year. For those still at school, exchange visits are organised to all three of the twin towns.
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If you live in and/or attend secondary school in Nuneaton and Bedworth you are eligible to apply.
£175.00
This includes the flight tickets there and back. Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council and the council of the town you visit pay for the rest.
- Own passport
- European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) available on line from www.ehic.ie
You may wish to take money, around 10 euro's per day, 100 euro's should be suffice to cover the 10 days.
Pupils are "matched" with pupils from Roanne, Guadalajara or Cottbus and the visits take place, usually at Easter and in July in the case of France and Spain and on dates to be decided in the case of Germany.
When you apply you are asked your hobbies and a pen friend with similar interests will be chosen for you. There are two legs of the exchange: Where you receive the pen friend and where the pen friend’s family receives you. The visits include excursions to various attractions around the town, receptions with the town’s Mayor and a present from the town. You stay with the family for around 10 days during which you may go to school (depending on the time of year).
On the pen friends’ visit, you will be expected to cater for them for the ten or so days. You are free to take you pen friend where you want. You may wish to take them to local sites of interest. If they are here during the school week they will be expected to accompany you to school but a trip is usually arranged during the school time so the exchange will even get you out of school for a day. A Mayor’s reception and excursions will be arranged while the pen friends are staying with you and a gift presented to the foreign students at the reception.
On the exchanges you meet new people, learn about other cultures spend time in a different environment seeing it from the native perspective. There isn't a better way to improve language grades. As part of the exchange you can made some wonderful friendships as well.
Exchanges are a great way to sample life in our twin towns and enable you to make many new friends, improve language skills.
"It was fun and I learned a lot. My pen friend and I are really good friends and spending time abroad does wonders for your language skills."
"I got to meet some great people."
Written by Exchange Student Dominic Rye
Every year the students of Nuneaton and Bedworth are all given the chance to spend ten days to a fortnight with a family from one of our twin towns.
I have been involved in four exchanges, three with Roanne and one with Cottbus. I really enjoyed the experiences however I couldn’t understand why so few people apply each year. I’m not the only one who enjoys them. All of my friends who have done exchanges comment afterwards on what a brilliant experience it is. It may seem daunting at first, but once you get involved you realise how much fun it can be.
