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Modern Foreign Languages

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The modern languages department is located in a suite of rooms, each of which is equipped with facilities for playing sound files, CDs, cassettes, videos and DVDs. There are two multimedia language laboratories, to which all pupils have regular access, which enhance both ICT skills and linguistic competence. Interactive whiteboards are now in place in all departmental classrooms and this exciting tool adds a new dimension to language learning.

Pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 in Clock House study French, German and Spanish for one or two periods a week, and all pupils in the First and Second Years study both French and German, with the possibility of continuing them through to GCSE. In the Third Year they have the option of starting Spanish or Russian and in the Lower Sixth there is the opportunity of beginning Japanese. All pupils take at least one language to GCSE.

At GCSE and AS/A2 level, students in the four main languages have regular contact with native speakers (often young students from Bradford University) in order to increase their fluency and confidence.

At the heart of the department's philosophy is the desire to give pupils first-hand experience of culture and language and thus we run a range of trips and exchanges from First Year to Upper Sixth. In recent years, we have organised very successful visits to La Tour d’Auvergne, Paris, Normandy, the Rhine Valley, Berlin and Málaga.

Our Linguists’ Club Lingo! organises film shows at lunchtime, and every Wednesday afternoon pupils can improve their linguistic skills in our multimedia rooms by watching foreign language television, using modern languages websites or playing languages games. 

The uptake of languages in the Sixth Form is usually very encouraging and results in public examinations are always very good. Students invariably secure a place at university, and most years we help pupils to achieve places at Oxford or Cambridge to read modern languages.  Our pupils often set themselves the challenge of beginning a new language such as Portuguese or Oriental Studies at university.

The ISC report stated: Pupils are highly competent learners, who enjoy the subject and are assiduous in their recording of vocabulary and presenting written work. They respect the teachers and each other and their behaviour contributes well to effective learning... A well-established assessment programme with results stored electronically ensures that pupil progress is monitored well.

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