NEWTON -- "Everything is huge here," says Coline Godard.

Godard, a sophomore at Institution La Croix Blanche in Lille, France, spent three weeks in the U.S. as part of a foreign exchange program with Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. She was surprised by the larger scale of everything from the school itself, housed inside a grand Tudor Revival estate, to the food portions. She got to try fast food and s'mores during her visit. She doesn't care much for marshmallows, but she loves NCDS sophomore Emma Wulff and her family, with whom she stayed during the exchange.

"I feel like everyone is happy to be here and for me also to be there," Coline said. "I enjoy being with them because they're not judging me, and letting me discover a new thing every time."

Emma likes being able to practice her French with a native speaker like Coline.

"It's more conversational and more of an immersed experience," she said.

For over 20 years, NCDS, which educates 375 girls from grades five to 12, has given sophomores the opportunity to go on foreign exchange visits to other schools in the Sacred Heart Network. The network consists of 150 schools established by the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 41 countries. Sacred Heart education has five goals: A personal and active faith in God, a deep respect for intellectual values, a social awareness, which impels to action, the building of community as a Christian value, and personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.

"The exchange program plugs into all of those goals," said Associate Head of School for Academics Melissa Bleakney-Dalton. "To go into a home in another country or in another city and live with another family and meet new friends, that certainly is personal growth."

As of Nov. 3, 2025, 10 students from Ireland, France, and Austria were visiting NCDS as part of the exchange program.

"Being an exchange partner means you're creating a bond with the Sacred Heart sisterhood," said NCDS sophomore Anna Sadkowski. "Even though they're so far away, we're still part of the same Sacred Heart community. Meeting them and having them here with us, it really brings that to life."

Anna's exchange partner is Linda Jagg, a junior at Sacre Coeur Riedenburg in Beregenz, Austria. Anna said that having Linda stay with her is like having a new member of the family. She tries to include her in as many family activities as possible.

"It's been quite the experience," Linda said. "I really like it here, and the teachers are really nice and approachable, and I feel like I've had so many exchanges with people here, and it's been so wholesome."

Linda wore a sweater with the U.S. flag on it, which she said was just a coincidence -- she bought it in Switzerland.

"I feel like it has made me more independent, especially being this far away from my family," she said, "and I learned how to be my own person and do things by myself that I would usually rely on my family to do, and it has really helped me grow."

Emma and Anna will go on their exchanges in March. Both girls filled out an application asking about their studies, extracurricular activities, and hobbies to get matched with an exchange student who shares their interests. Coline said that the school is like a "sisterhood," and that she will have fond memories of watching movies and exploring the Boston area with the Wulffs.

"All the slow moments that I can find in France, but it's really different because it's with another family that I choose and I adapt to," she said.

Associate Head of School for Strategy and Mission Nicki Noel said that living overseas helps young women advocate for themselves and communicate across cultures.

"The resilience-building opportunity that traveling independently offers our students is really wonderful and remarkable, and they do grow so much from stretching themselves in this way," she said. "They grow in confidence as problem solvers."

When the girls come back from their time abroad, said Exchange Coordinator Cole Stephenson, they are more willing to put themselves in unfamiliar situations.

"I think they come to develop a sense of self and a sense of autonomy that they don't necessarily feel before," he said.

NCDS was founded in Boston in 1880, where the Sacred Heart sisters taught three mayors and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. The need for more space took the school from a row of Back Bay brownstones to the 20-acre Loren D. Towle estate in Newton, which the sisters purchased in 1925.

"Brilliant investors in real estate, as you can see," Bleakney-Dalton said.

As vocations declined, the Sacred Heart schools formed global networks. Today, they are mostly staffed by laypeople, but NCDS has sisters on its board to this day. Their charism continues to guide the school's work.

"We have wonderfully warm relationships with the religious of the Sacred Heart in even our Greater Boston area," Noel said.

Bleakney-Dalton said that the exchange program contributes to the school's mission, helping girls live "a life that is meaningful and joyful."

"It's something that's so unique about our Sacred Heart education," she said, "that these students from all over the world have the opportunity to meet each other, form relationships, see that they're at the very basic level, that they're very much the same, and yet celebrate the differences in cultures and understand that we're not exactly the same."