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German

We introduce German at Year 7 level and offer a two year course which culminates in the exams to the Upper School at the end of Year 8.

Staff
Head of German:	Mr Alex McComas BA Cert Ed
Teachers:	Mr Alex Durkin BA PGCE
	Miss Elizabeth Perry

We have three lessons per week and one prep of thirty minutes per fortnight.

The stress in the lessons at the outset is very much placed on the speaking skills and we encourage the pupils to communicate on topics of interest to children aged 11 to 12.

Such topics are: myself, family, house and home, school and routines, sports and leisure activities, food, home town etc. As the course progresses, the skills of reading, listening and writing are also practised more regularly. We aim to teach about the geography and culture of Germany too, to encourage a greater understanding of the people.

At the time of writing our course book is entitled “Lernpunkt Deutsch”, but we may well change courses in the near future.

Recently, Year 8 children have much enjoyed the Language Trip to Germany in April which is run by the German Department in the Upper School.

Assessment

The course is provided with its own regular assessment procedure at the end of each unit, where pupils are also encouraged to feed back their own views on their progress; otherwise exams to date have taken place in January for Year 8, with an end of year exam in June - listening, reading and writing skills are tested with Year 8 experiencing a speaking test in June.

Development

As a most important European language, German still ranks highly along side Spanish and Mandarin at the Pre. We work in close co-operation with the Upper School where ex Pre pupils gain impressive results both at GCSE and A-Level.

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