On the surface, such summer school programs do not differ too much from what British students get in school during term time. But in reality, such seemingly normal programs can be very eye-opening experiences for Chinese students coming to the UK.

“For the first time in a long while, I feel that I can forget about exam results and piles of homework. I loved sitting on the grass, looking at the sky and reflecting about life,”said Wu Jiaming, a 14-year-old girl from Fujian.

In drama class, she played Romeo in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and eventually discovered a passion for acting.“That was my first time trying out acting. It was such a magical experience, it allowed me to see the world from a different person’s perspective,”Wu said.

Han Yuxuan, a 15 year old boy also from Fujian, says he learnt to appreciate life’s little surprises.

“That day, we received a little assignment, which asked us to take a picture together with a local Cambridge person. I approached the owner of a pop-up food stall outside Cambridge City Hall and asked in English if I could take a photo with him. He answered me‘Yes’in Chinese. I was pleasantly surprised,”Han recalls.

Han exchanged contacts with the pop-up store owner on WeChat, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and the two friends still send each other greeting messages during significant festivals such as Spring Festival.

For students like Wu and Han, such unique experiences are treasured memories in their journey into adulthood. Similar experiences are sure to be shared by many more Chinese students for years to come.

The Chinese travel booking agency Ctrip forecasts that the number of overseas study trips made by Chinese students this year will reach about one million, and these trips will together trigger 30 billion yuan ($4.53 billion) of spending. This forecast represents a 50 percent growth on the number of overseas study trips in 2017.

Ctrip, which released these figures in April in its 2017-18 Study Tour Market Report, said at the moment, China has 180 million students from kindergarten to high school, and around five percent of these students are thought to participate in summer schools, both domestically and internationally.

In three years’time, Ctrip forecasts 10 percent of these students will participate in summer camps.

Some such summer camps are organized by Chinese secondary schools and universities for their own students. Others are hosted by third party education organizations, such as New Oriental Education & Technology Group, EF Education and Pearson Global Study Tour.