Modern Languages

Languages Taught

  • French, German and Spanish are all available to GCSE and A-level at Clayesmore. In year 9 most pupils have a beginners’ course in Spanish and German, as well as being able to continue with French.
  • Pupils can opt for any one or two of French, German and Spanish in years 10 and 11 for GCSE, and occasionally pupils decide to take all three languages.
  • We have healthy numbers studying languages in the sixth form to AS and A2 level.

Aims of the Languages Department

  • We believe in languages for all and we aim to promote enjoyable and successful language learning for pupils of all abilities. The A*- C pass rate in languages at GCSE is always very high: 93% in French in summer 2010.
  • We aim to stimulate and stretch linguistically talented pupils. Able pupils generally achieve excellent results, with many A and A grades at GCSE (17 pupils gained A in a GCSE modern language in 2010) and good numbers gaining grade A at A-level in the sixth form in all three languages (32 sixth formers have gained a grade A in a modern language in the past five years and many have gone on to study languages at university).
  • Pupils are encouraged to use the foreign language for communicating with each other and their teacher in the classroom, and most of them do this very successfully and with a lot of enjoyment. The pupils compete to gain the award of “speaker of the month” in each class.
  • We aim to promote an interest in foreign countries and cultures and to broaden pupils’ horizons. Our programme of foreign visits and exchanges is one of the principal means of fulfilling this goal.

Foreign Visits and Exchanges

  • We run regular foreign exchanges for pupils, when they are able to stay with the family of a boy or girl of a similar age in France or Germany. The French and German pupils then make a return visit to Clayesmore later in the year. The exchanges we are currently running are:

  • Year 10, 11 and 6th form French Exchange with a school in the Southern Burgundy region of France (December 2011).

  • Year 10, 11 and 6th form German Exchange with the Georg-Büchner-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf (December 2010 and 2012).

  • For Spanish, we organise a home-stay language and culture trip run in cooperation with a language school in the city of Granada in Andalucia (March 2011) for pupils in year 10 and above.

  • For students in the U6th there are often short visits to support the study of the cultural component at A2. Recent visits have included Study Visits to Berlin (February 2010 and 2011) and a French Study Visit to the Rhone Valley (March 2011).