Japanese boys taking part in an exchange scheme spent two weeks living with Marlborough families to learn about British culture. Children improved their language skills, cooked homemade dishes and even visited Buckingham Palace during their two weeks staying in the Wiltshire countryside.

Marlborough provided a huge culture change for the boys, who travelled 6000 miles from their home city of Nagoya, populated by 2.2million people.

Host families learnt about Japanese culture from the boys, who brought origami and popular wooden toys from the Far East.

The exchange programme, designed by Learning Journeys Study Abroad Consultancy has been running since 2004 and has seen nearly 200 boys participating in the scheme. During their time in wiltshire some boys also attended summer schools run by Marlborough College.

Zoe O’Reilly and her family has had Japanese boys stay with them every summer for five years. This year they welcomed 14 year old Shintaro.

Mrs O’Reilly, who has lived in Marlborough for 11 years said:“The boys we have had to stay certainly grow in confidence over the two weeks and improve their English, even if they don’t have many words to begin with.

“A highlight was definitely visiting a friend’s smallholding and letting Shintaro play with the puppies, ducks, turkeys and other animals.

“Coming from such a big city in Japan he had never been able to play like that before and he really came out of his shell.

“Despite Japan's great technology, some of the children’s toys they brought over were very traditional. Our children who are 5 and 9 loved doing origami with him.”

The group travelled back to Japan on 5 August having spent two weeks in the UK.

Anyone interested in finding out more about hosting students in the future should email Alexandra on ajk.learningjourneys@gmail.com