It has been a busy year in the Department, with a number of notable highlights.

In October, Miss Lauren Griffin led a trip to Salamanca for 20 pupils in our Fifth Form. Pupils benefitted from five hours per day of intensive Spanish lessons and enjoyed spending time in this beautiful city.

Our annual MFL debating competition at College, organised by Mr James Coull, was a tremendous success, hosting teams from other schools competing against each other and our Upper College debaters.

Mme Wandrille Bates accompanied our French debating team (Claudia Norbury and Max Craven) to the Joutes Oratoires competition at Marlborough College. The Lower Sixth French students also visited the local Boulangerie Artisan to hear about the art and heritage of French baking. MFL Society events have included a Crêpe and Kahoot!

Night for Third Form, a Tapas and Wine Evening for Upper College, which included excellent presentations from Zoe Cripwell on her prize-winning essay on whether AI & internet translators will make language learning redundant, and from Ademide Obagun on the history of the Spanish guitar, as well as a screening of Les Choristes for Third Form French pupils.

In Summer Term, the theatre group Onatti performed their French play Les Cours d’Art to our Fourth Form French pupils and we held the inaugural Pétanque in the Park Evening for Lower Sixth language students who enjoyed the cultural experience of a game of boules.

Pupils from our Upper College and Fifth Form German classes attended a superb Oktoberfest event at Radley College, where they were treated to a German menu and enjoyed
the opportunity to socialise in German through a number of activities, songs and quizzes.

Ademide Obagun, Nastasia Zaikina, Wenlin Huang, Ollie Gardner, Zoë Cripwell, Max Craven, Liora Bezuhanova (Lower Sixth), Esmé Cartwright (Fifth Form) and Henry Jebb (Fifth Form) all gained certificates for their participation in the UK Linguistics Olympiad. Annabel Cates and Kitty Callender from Third Form went beyond and above by submitting entries to the University of Oxford French Flash Fiction competition.

During Activities Week Mme Helen Powell, Mr Coull and Miss Griffin took 24 of our Third Form French pupils on a wonderful trip to Montpellier where pupils enjoyed
a morning of language lessons followed by trips in the afternoon to explore the town and its stunning beach, visit the Roman amphitheatre in Nîmes and canoe along the river in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.

Max Craven planned a trip to a language school in Biarritz, and Wenlin Huang used her Travel Award towards a Spanish language and cookery course in San Sebastián.
Congratulations to all our departing Upper Sixth linguists, with a special mention to those with offers to study a language as part of their degree course: Charlotte Tomlins; Jude Richardson; Katie Baker; Ivan Luhovyi and Milly Jenkins.

Mrs Annabelle Million and Mr Keri Price