Modern Foreign Languages
We are passionate about languages and about giving our boys the chance to experience a wide range of languages and cultures. When joining in Year 7, boys are free to choose one language out of French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Spanish. The language the pupils have chosen to study in Year 7 is the language they will continue to GCSE.
In Year 9, they can choose to pick up one, two or even three additional languages from those listed above, along with Italian. A significant number of our boys continue with languages beyond GCSE. All six languages are popular A Level choices. On average, 90 pupils study a language at A Level in in the Sixth Form, and at least 30 continue with languages or a combined languages degree at university, at Russell Group Universities, including Oxford and Cambridge.
We aim to develop our pupils as highly skilled linguists, who are both enthusiastic about languages and curious about the global community they are growing up in. We want to give pupils the tools to be able to communicate effectively and confidently, to instil in them an interest in the culture and literature associated with the languages we offer, and to pass on our strong belief in the opportunities that studying languages presents.
We are fortunate to have a large team of native speaker language assistants who work alongside our teachers, and we offer a wealth of co-curricular activities, giving our pupils the chance to experience languages in action.
Our co-curricular provision ranges from World Cinema Club to Linguistics Club, and from Lingo-Games to our Sixth Form Languages Society known as SLangSoc. Our Year 10 Language Ambassadors run a Languages Club in our Junior School and help to organise one-off events for the Lower School. Our linguists regularly compete in national competitions too, showing off their debating, spelling and essay writing skills. We have a strong tradition of taking pupils on residential trips abroad. Recent trips include visits to Tuscany, Cap D’Ail, Gredos, China and Estonia. For over twenty years we have also enjoyed a thriving exchange programme with our German partner school, the Maria-Theresia Gymnasium in Augsburg.