Our weekly blog has been written by Mr Willis, Head of MFL, who talks of reflecting on achievements, the variety of language’s taken at exam level this year and also what you can do this summer to brush up on your language skills. 

Bonjour, Hola,

As we hurtle toward the end of term, it’s great to reflect on the many achievements of pupils this year.

Our main focus has rightly been on our exam classes and we have had almost 40 pupils sitting approximately 140 different exam papers in French, Spanish, Mandarin and even Italian and German this year. It has been a massive feat to organise all the different exams, exam warm ups, tiers of entry (GCSE can choose Foundation or Higher tier), exam boards, revision and ensuring all pupils are ready to sit their exams.

We’ve also had to be flexible (as always) as we had ISI inspectors appearing the week before GCSE speaking exams were due to start and building work meaning the usual places where exams might take place had to be changed.

Thanks as always goes to my department – Mr Garcia and Mrs Zhao as they continually strive to get the best from all their pupils, as well as to the exams officer Mrs Thornton for all her help and support with every aspect of the exams.

For classes in Year 7-10, we have been creating some resources and displays which you will see on Speech Day which showcase the great work pupils produce. This gives a small snapshot of what goes on in lessons.

Finally, five ideas of what you could do in the summer holidays.

• Put a Netflix film into a foreign language or with foreign language subtitles.
• Read a book from the country of the language you are learning.
• Try out some language in a restaurant in the local area by ordering your meal in the language.
• Keep practising using memrise or duolingo
• Try one of the challenges your Head of Year has sent you – remember these will be awarded merits when you return in September.

And as we look forward to the summer break, we would like to wish you all a restful and peaceful vacation, to stay safe in your travels, to get out and see this wonderful world we inhabit and to practise some of those language skills you have picked up.