Ratcliffian 2016 (LOWRES)

Judith Scherer, Emily Bown, Clara von Obernitz
View of “der Alex”, from Berliner Dom
MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Language Society evening
Granada
Business Language
Champions Debating
Challenge
On Friday 20 th November, a group of four
students of French, Emma Furlong, Lauren Mulla,
Lolade Mosaku and Christian Waters, took part in
a debating challenge organised by the Business
Language Champions at St. George’s Academy
in Sleaford.
The day started with an inspirational speech from
Emma McClarkin, MEP for the East Midlands, on
the importance of international communication,
which gave our students insight into the vast number
of opportunities available to language graduates,
who are in great demand in the European Parliament.
MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Declan McAuley, Chris Curnick, Emiliano Orsini-Rottner
Brandenburger Tor, Berlin
All the participating teams were then divided to deliver
their prepared speech. Our students delivered their
opposing argument to the motion: Cette chambre est
d’avis que le cannabis devrait être légalisé (This house
believes that cannabis should be legalised) with humour,
confidence and clarity. They won this first challenge with
one judge writing the comment: “a charismatic team!”
Modern Foreign Languages
We started off the year with some excellent results in public
examinations: in French GCSE we had our best results in six years and
a significant increase in the number of A* grades; a total of 17, which
was the second highest number in the School and well above what
students achieved in other independent schools.
This trend could be seen in the Spanish GCSE results as well,
where 74% of our students achieved A*/A grades, compared
with 49% of students in other independent schools. Our
continued and improved pattern of academic success beyond
GCSE has ensured an increasingly healthy uptake of modern
foreign languages at AS and A2 Level, with group sizes
expanding to 11 for French.
This year for the first time students in Year 6 experienced
a carousel of French, German and Spanish, and the Year
7 students could choose any two languages from French,
German, Spanish and Latin, with which they will continue
until the end of Year 9. This has meant that there are equal
numbers studying French and Spanish and has necessitated
recruiting Mrs Jo Leite to teach some lower school Spanish.
Our extra-curricular opportunities continue to attract
students of all ages and abilities: with language trips to Nice,
Granada and Germany to the Opal Coast, these visits play
an important part in developing our students’ fluency and
interest in the subject, and many cite their experiences as a
motivating factor in choosing to carry on with their study of
a modern language.
We launched the first language visit to Berlin at Easter, giving
students the opportunity to attend language classes in the
mornings, followed by sightseeing in the afternoons. This
proved a big success and we hope to offer a similar trip in
the future. In the meantime, we maintain our link with the
Bischöfliches Cusanus-Gymnasium in Koblenz, with whom
we plan an exchange visit next year.
Closer to home, we remain closely involved with Business
Language Champions and earlier in the year a group of
Sixth Form French students took part in a regional French
debating competition which, despite not winning, gave them
invaluable experience of speaking in public – impressive,
given that most people fear this more than death!
Our House Language competitions have gained momentum
this year, with students taking part in three so far, one of
which has tested their ability to translate intriguing film titles
into English. We are fortunate that the study of a film is part
of the ‘A’ Level syllabus, and we encourage students to watch
as many films in their chosen target language as possible, as
this broadens their cultural, as well as linguistic, knowledge.
Boulogne
The Sixth Form Language Society evenings have therefore
been based around watching and discussing a film in either
French, German or Spanish.
The new GCSE and ‘A’ Level specifications have informed
training and planning for next year: we have attended online
and external training sessions to bring us all up to speed
with the requirements from September and have been busy
evaluating new resources. There is a saying plus ça change,
plus c’est
la même chose and it is true that the new examinations bear
a close resemblance to those offered pre-2000, which some
of us are (unfortunately) old enough to remember teaching.
Whilst our students are certainly going to find it a challenge
to return to terminal examinations and no dictionaries in
GCSE, we are enthusiastic about the range of new resources
and textbooks in the offing, which we will add to our
favoured French textbooks Studio and which will help
us to achieve greater parity across the languages.
Mrs S Cushing
Head of Modern Foreign Languages
This was followed by a talk from Sally Fagan, from
Business Language Champions, on public speaking
skills, giving invaluable advice on how to stand in front
of an audience, how to project our voice and how to
use short, but “punchy” sentences.
In the afternoon, students had fifteen minutes to prepare
their second speech. They had to argue in favour of
the motion: Cette chambre est d’avis que la vie des filles
est plus compliquée que celle des garçons and start the
argument. A difficult subject but our team won their
second round too and very nearly made it to the final.
Again, our team received a special mention for their
passionate delivery.
Many congratulations to all for taking part in such a
wonderful but sometimes nerve-racking challenge!
You all did a tremendous job and should be very proud!
Mrs A Crebbin
Lauren Mulla, Lolade Mosaku, Emma Furlong,
Christian Waters flying the flag for Ratcliffe.
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