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My name is Clemens Krammer and I have been part of Whitgift Summer School since day one! I am from Austria and moved to England in September 2013. First things first: no, I do not know Arnold Schwarzenegger or David Alaba personally and yes, Austrians do speak German. I was only meant to be in London and work for Whitgift School as a German Language Assistant for 10 months, but then I found out that the school offers Basketball as a co-curricular activity and slowly got more involved as a sports coach. I fell in love with the school and everything around it and decided to stay for another year, and then another, and then another… (you get the idea). After a few years, I took over as Head of Basketball and I am very proud of the Basketball program we have been able to develop since then. I played semi-professionally in Austria and still play for a few teams in local leagues in London.

In my second year at Whitgift, a fellow Austrian colleague asked me if I wanted to help sending promotional materials and brochures to Switzerland, Germany and France for the planned Summer School. I said yes and little did I know, this was the start of something big and I become a part of the very first Whitgift Summer School. I started off as an ‘Administrative Research Assistant’ and joined the first ever summer camp as an Activity Leader. My current role is Senior Activity Leader and Sports Co-Ordinator. My passion is still running the Basketball Academy along with our experienced coach Junior Clark, but I also focus on making sure all other sports activities run smoothly, that everyone is safe while having fun, as well as organising some of the evening activities and helping with day-to-day responsibilities and excursions. There’s a lot to it!

I can honestly say that working for Whitgift Summer School has been tremendously fun each year. Some of the students I taught at Whitgift many years ago actually joined our staff team last year and became my colleagues as Activity Leaders. For me, as an Austrian living in another country, it is such a wholesome and wonderful experience being surrounded by people from all over the world (staff and students). Due to my background as a basketball coach, I appreciate diversity and I love the fact that sport (just like learning a language) can bring together people from different continents.

Looking back at past summer school experiences, it has been beautiful to see the pupils develop and come out of their shell within a few days and weeks. The kids genuinely seem to thrive in a short space of time and become more confident, make lots of friends and vastly improve their English skills. One of my favourite German words is ‘Vorfreude’ and it describes the feeling of positive anticipation (loosely translated to ‘pre-joy’), and consequently, I am really looking forward to trips to Brighton and Thorpe Park (and might be more excited about the rollercoasters than some of the kids) as well as handing out of the Sports Awards at the graduation ceremony on Fridays before heading for some street food and disco night!