Arts & Languages Faculty

In the Languages lessons, all students will learn French and German in both Year 7 and Year 8. On an annual rotating basis, students in Year 7 will have two lessons per fortnight of one language and three lessons per fortnight of the other language. Students in Year 7 in the school year 2025 to 2026, will do 3 French lessons and 2 German. All students do three lessons per fortnight of both languages in Year 8.

As Key Stage 4 runs across 3 years, options take place at the end of Year 8, and pupils can choose to continue to GCSE with either of the languages they have done since Year 7, both or neither.

We follow the Edexcel GCSE course and this looks at the topics of: my personal world, lifestyle and wellbeing, my neighbourhood, media and technology, studying and my future and travel and tourism. The course examines the four skills required - reading, listening, writing and speaking.

The department organises regular educational visits to both Germany and France. In the coming year, for example, there will be a Year 10 visit to Berlin just before Christmas, a Year 8/9 visit to Normandy in March and a Year 8 visit to the Rhineland in the summer term.

We offer both languages at A level, where the study is much more focussed on the society and culture of the respective country and many students go on to study a language as a whole or part of their degree studies.

French Curriculum Overview

German Curriculum Overview