Language College

The Language College specialism is divided into two strands: internal and external initiatives.

Internal initiatives

Within the school community, we aim to promote the enriching capacities of learning languages in general, and emphasise the value of language skills for later life. We see languages also as a tool to combine a number of different curriculum areas, and incorporate bilingual learning into our G+T programme at school.

Initiatives to enrich the students’ experience of language learning take many forms:

1. Cross curricular and vertical year group G&T sessions, combining a language with a subject content, are run in each main language taught, across all Key Stages.
2. Every year, Autumn Term Creativity Week focuses on collaborative subject, language and cultural content for Year 7 students, in French, German, Spanish and Latin.
3. A variety of study visits and exchanges are offered to learners of all Key Stages and experiences are disseminated to the broadest of audiences where possible.
4. The International Day of Languages focuses the entire school community on an international theme.
5. Students are supported in taking GCSEs in other community languages.
6. Extra-curricular clubs related to languages, culture and internationalism are available to students to participate in.
7. A range of language competitions, both within school and within the local community, to increase engagement and profile of languages.
8. International Careers Fair held in the autumn.

External initiatives

In line with our commitment as a Confucius Classroom, we aim to maintain the interest of the local community in languages for learners, and respond flexibly to ever-changing requirements through:

1. Language courses specifically aimed at primary school children.
2. CPD and specialist MFL teaching provided to local primary school teachers.
3. Language taster/G&T cross-curricular sessions run in local primary and secondary schools.
4. Language conferences for teachers from other schools

As one of nine Lead Schools for Languages Pedagogy in England (designated 2018) we work with other schools in the Dartford area to incorporate the latest educational research into our languages teaching practice, hosting monthly training sessions for languages teachers and trialling innovative teaching techniques.

As an IB school, we are keen to share good practice and promote an international approach to learning through international experiences, disseminated to the school community and beyond through the School Newsletter.