Student goes all the way from Elgin to Elgin

It's a long way from the sleepy farming community of Elgin to the Scottish highlands but Maddison Quilty, 14, will be swapping a sunburnt country for a snowy landscape when she jets off to Europe next week where the Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School student will take part in a school exchange program at the renowned Gordonstoun school in Elgin, Scotland.

She will be following in the footsteps of British royalty as three generations of the Queen’s family have been educated at the prestigious school.

Speaking to the South Western Times at the Elgin hall in the Shire of Capel this week, Maddison said she couldn’t wait to go.

‘‘It’s awesome, I am really looking forward to seeing everything I can,’’ Maddison said.

‘‘I hope to go skiing and we get to go to Edinburgh — I can’t wait,’’ she said.

Maddison had to complete a competitive application process to be selected from her peers to take part in the Round Square Conference of Schools exchange program of which BCGS is one of more than 80 schools worldwide.

Under that initiative BCGS sends a number of students away each year to experience and take part in the varied and diverse cultures of the countries that the member schools are located in.

For Maddison it will mean spending three months in the Scottish highlands at the famed school where she will be a boarder and study under the Gordonstoun curriculum.

This will also mean following the school’s dress code.

’I get to go to the school’s Valentines Day ball, and for that we have to wear the going-out uniform,’’ Maddison said.

‘‘That involves wearing a full-length kilt. That should be interesting.’’