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Roundhay School gains specialist language status
Roundhay School is the latest school to gain specialist language status in order to promote the subject.
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Memories of learning foreign languages often include memorising endless lists of nouns and verbs.
Combined with the scrapping of compulsory GCSEs, interest in the subject area has shrunk in recent years.
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In a bid to reverse the trend, selected high schools have been introducing new teaching methods and innovative programmes to stem the decline.
In Leeds, the city already boasts a clutch of schools – including Prince Henry's Grammar in Otley, Brigshaw in Allerton Bywater and Royds in Oulton – who have gained specialist language status in order to promote the subject.
This week, Roundhay School became the latest to join the group.
The 1,500-pupil school, which has also had a technology specialism since 2002, will now be able to take the teaching of languages such as French, Spanish and German to the next level.
"Languages have always been strong here and that gave us the platform to become a specialist language school," said Pam Gitton, teacher and manager of Roundhay's foreign language work in its local community.
"Having acquired the additional status, the new curriculum gives us a chance to move away from the traditional methods of teaching modern foreign languages (MFL).
"We want to make MFL much more relevant for our students, giving them more practical experiences. We live in a world now where people travel the world for work and having a second language can set you apart from the others."
The school intends to quickly expand an already impressive range of programmes that include working with feeder primary schools such as Talbot, Moor Allerton, Kerr Mackie and Gledhow primaries.
Working with these partners, Roundhay will set up or exte
nd foreign language classes such as German, Spanish and French that are becoming a compulsory part of the curriculum under new Government legislation.
Looking abroad, Roundhay will build on existing links with partner schools in Germany and Spain, offering students the chance to travel abroad and use their new language skills.
A raft of projects – some a million miles from traditional MFL teaching – are also taking shape. These include events such as a Monopoly Challenge in which sixth form students used French and Spanish game boards in a competition held at Leeds Met's new Rose Bowl in the city centre.
Students have also been lined up to join in Arsenal Double Club, in which selected teenagers learn German, French and Spanish with the help of the London side.
Backed by the Football Association, the award-winning scheme was launched in 1998 after the club won both the Premier and the FA Cup.
It has already helped 1,800 students from about 80 schools across the country by using the glamour appeal of Premier League and visits to Arsenal's stunning 60,000-seater Emirates Stadium.
By acquiring languages status, Roundhay also helps to reverse a worrying decline nationally in the number of students studying foreign languages at GCSE level and beyond.
Although learning a language is becoming compulsory in both primary and secondary schools for all pupils aged seven to 14, pupils have been able to drop the subject area for their GCSE years since 2004.
In the intervening years, the proportion of pupils opting to study GCSEs in French, German and Spanish has plummeted. French has been the biggest loser, with numbers down by a third in four years.
German and Spanish have seen year on year falls of about five per cent.
At Roundhay, the school aims to offer every pupil the chance to study two languages from year 7, with the subjects area ingrained into every part of the curriculum, from science and art through to geography and history.
Mrs Gitton said: "90 per cent of our students in Key stage 4 (14-16 years) will be given the opportunity to learn a language and gain accreditation. It won't necessarily be at GCSE level because there are a range of courses and qualifications we can offer. We will be doing things like a five-week course in Mandarin and six-week course in Italian."
Roundhay was invited to offer a second specialism on the back of being given an "outstanding" grade following its last Ofsted inspection in November 2007.
Other accolades include being named the lead school in the region for teaching especially talented children, and being judged one of the country's top-performing specialist schools.
Among those who have already benefited from the school's language teaching is Niki Horsfall.
The 20-year-old, who is originally from Roundhay, has just embarked on her second year at Cambridge University.
She did her GCSEs at the school before staying on for A-levels in French, media and English language. She won her place at the distinguished university after gaining straight A grades in all her subjects.
"I have always enjoyed learning languages, ever since I started at
Roundhay in year 7," said Niki. "It was in my plans to study languages at A-level and then at degree level.
"One of the things that did it for me was on a school trip to France. That was when I realised that I could actually converse in French and that gave me the confidence to take it further."
After completing her A-levels, Niki delayed going to Cambridge for a year so that she could work as an au pair in France and then spend three months in Japan, where she taught English.
Before she started higher education, she also took a beginners course in Spanish.
She is now studying French and Spanish as part of her degree in modern and medieval languages.
The four-year course will include living abroad, with Niki possibly going to live in both France or Spain, where she will link up with other universities.
With a top degree in languages in her pocket, she will have a wide variety of options.
"There are so many different areas available to you when you have foreign languages," she said. "People seem to think you can only be a teacher or a translator, but there is so much else you can do, such as politics and international business. It's great that pupils in Roundhay will have even more opportunity to study languages that will open doors for them in the future."
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