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non palma sine pulvere
What KLB School has achieved as a Language College
A summary of the range of languages activities at KLB School.
(Updated November 2006)
- All pupils take at least one language to GCSE - this in the context of
rapidly declining take up of Languages at Key Stage 4. Nationally, less than
50% of pupils are taking a language at Key Stage 4 in over 50% of schools. In
the highest achieving 20% of schools, only 60% offer languages as a compulsory
subject.
- Around 20% take two languages to GCSE - again, significant in the above
context.
- Pupils are offered a particularly wide range of languages.
- The Oriental languages are particularly strong in this school.
- For Japanese there are
over 40 pupils in each of Years 7 to 10, 25 in Year 11, 12 taking AS in Y12
and 9 taking A2 in Y13.
- For Chinese, staffing has limited availability but we currently have
groups in Years 7, 8 and 12.
- A level courses run in French, German, Spanish and Japanese. Chinese is
currently running in Year 12.
- All Year 12 students take NVQ units in languages at Level 1 (for
beginners) or Level 2 (continuing from Year 11).
- The most able pupils generally achieve very high grades in the
Languages. The relatively good take up at A level combined with our NVQ
provision means that many of our pupils who will move into Business and
Commerce are particularly well equipped to operate in the global economy.
- We have a particularly successful and
extensive range of exchanges. The national context for this is that
fewer and fewer schools run exchanges and those that do are struggling to
maintain them. Our problem seems to be oversubscription! We have exchanges
to France,
Germany,
Spain and
Japan. We also have a 'one-way'
exchange with China.
- In addition to the above, we also have
work experience placements in
Year 12 in Germany, France and Spain.
- We work with 12 local primary schools in Years 3 to 6. The main
languages offered are French, German and Japanese. We offer between 1 and 2
hours per week in each of our partner primary schools for the whole academic
year. Our primary provision is far greater than any of the other Language
Colleges in Gloucestershire and we are seen as the lead school in the county
for this work.
- Our main partner secondary school for languages is Sir William Romney's
School in Tetbury. Our support includes staffing their double language
provision in Year 10 and by offering Japanese to Key Stage 3 pupils through
video conferencing. We are also developing a strategy to support their work
to enable their feeder primary schools to deliver the Key Stage 2 Languages
Strategy.
We are also working with Marlwood School in order to enable them to sustain
their A level French provision for which they have limited uptake.
- We run adult education classes in French. We currently have 20 members
of the local community enrolled which shows an increase over 2005/06.
- Our website has a considerable range of
interactive language resources which are used by a large number of UK
schools. A Google search for information on subjects such as
GCSE Japanese consistently has KLB School resources on the first page
of the search results. The website itself has had visitors from over
50 countries since was set up in
May 2000.
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