Catherine Thurston

French

Teaching and Pastoral

Following my baccalauréat and a gap year in Canada, I enrolled at the Université Stendhal in Grenoble where I spent two years studying English literature and American civilisation. I then completed my degree at Reading University under the Erasmus Exchange Programme. Going from a French institution to a British one was quite an eye-opener and I very much enjoyed the freedom to do my research as well as attending small classes with a tutor. This was quite a different experience altogether from the crowded lecture rooms that I was used to in France! I then enrolled at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris to do my MA on Charles Dickens. I came to teaching as a French assistante at Charterhouse. I then taught French at Aldro Prep School before moving to Switzerland with my family. We returned to the UK in 2016 and Oxford became our new home. I taught at Cokethorpe briefly and then at Magdalen College School before joining Summer Fields in September 2019. In my spare time, I like going for walks in the forest, reading and doing yoga. I also love gardening, painting furniture and travelling to France (bien sûr!), visiting Brittany especially!