Languages

The Modern Foreign Languages department teaches French across the age and ability range, building on the sound foundations taught in the Pre-prep, up to Common Entrance and Public School Scholarship.

Pupils are taught to a high standard in all four language skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening which leads to success beyond Cottesmore at GCSE and A level. We use authentic situations and examples to stress the importance of language learning for life as well as using more traditional methods in our classes.

A typical lesson might involve learning Common Entrance topic vocabulary for an oral, writing an informal letter, doing an exercise from the online language laboratory or watching and responding to a DVD extract.

Cottesmore has a very flexible approach to late starters who flourish because of our bespoke curriculum and because the syllabus is spiral, in that all areas of vocabulary are regularly re-visited.

The Modern Foreign Languages department is staffed by two experienced teachers, both of whom have lived in France and speak French fluently. Our success in the last decade has been based on setting high standards, using modern resources to motivate and interest our pupils and taking all of Year 7 to France for a residential trip every year.

French is a popular subject with Cottesmorians as it relates to their daily lives through the topics chosen for study; feedback from the range of Public Schools that we serve is very positive.

The department has also offered German, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian and Turkish either to pupils who are maintaining a second language or for beginners. Specialist teachers are brought in for those pupils who wish to extend their languages in this way.