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Modern Languages

Head of Department: 
Mrs K Lovegrove
Staff: 
Mrs A Price
Staff: 
Ms S Richardson
Staff: 
Mrs K Watkins

Welcome to the Languages Department!

We are proud to be a specialist department at this school and are committed to helping you achieve your very best during your studies with us.

Our department has highly-qualified teachers in French, German and Spanish and we teach all of these up to GCSE level.  Having the wonderful opportunity to study a new language is given to all of our students, as we firmly believe that studying a foreign language gives you new skills and broadens your awareness of the world.

Being able to talk to in a different language lets you connect with people on their own terms, not just yours, and can help you experience different cultures and attitudes that much more deeply.  We try to stimulate your imagination, develop skills and knowledge that you can use in all of your other subjects and give you the ability to experience a little bit more when you go abroad.

Learning a language at Weobley makes you open your ears, your mouth – and your mind.

Our department comprises four members of staff:
Mrs K Lovegrove: German and French; Subject Leader - MFL, Assistant Headteacher
Mrs A Price: German and French; Learning Coordinator Year 8
Ms S Richardson: Spanish and French; Form Tutor
Mrs K Watkins: French and German; Form Tutor

Our languages lessons take place in four classrooms, all equipped with interactive whiteboards and the IT that is supplied with them.  Two of them are also kitted out with a full suite of computers with language learning software and recording equipment. These allow us to teach in an excellent language-learning environment.

We encourage all our students to participate fully in lessons, no matter their abilities in languages.  Having a positive learning experience in our lessons is crucial and careful planning ensures that we build student skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing. We concentrate not only on learning the language, but exploring the culture of the foreign country.

A new focus on visits to France, Spain and Germany has been initiated this year to show our students the relevance of their academic studies, and the department is exploring new and exciting opportunities to exchange emails and work with students in France, Germany and Spain.

We are extremely proud to have been selected as one of only eight Herefordshire schools to take part in a 2010 British Council learning project with China.  In May, our deputy head is spending a week with our new partner school in the Hanban province in China. This visit will set in place an exciting range of academic and cultural projects that we will be working on over the next two years.

What do we do at Key Stage 2?

By the time our students come to Weobley, most of them know some of our teachers already. For the last four years, our department has worked very closely with several of our feeder primaries, supporting Primary Language Teaching and delivering language lessons to their students. We support them in implementing the KS2 MFL Framework and have coached their teaching staff on delivering their own MFL lessons.

Key Stage 3

All students learn French as the primary language at Weobley and, depending on year of entry, approximately half of our students will also learn either French or German. This alternates from year to year. Progression and building on existing skills is of paramount importance for us, as is developing skills in independent learning amongst our students. French students are now learning with the Expo series, German learners use Logo plus a lot of web-based or teacher-created resources and Spanish students learn with Listos. We are increasingly building in group work and independent learning skills so that pupils can cope with the demands of GCSE study.

Key Stage 4

All three languages are offered at Key Stage 4 and students can always study two languages if they wish. All students follow the Edexcel GCSE course, using Edexcel’s own GCSE books for French and German, and Mira for Spanish.
We use a lot of internet resources during GCSE study, such as work from relevant websites and video.
We are currently developing a study-from-home section on the MFL website to allow students to access learning from home.