Modern Languages at
Mark Rutherford

We offer three languages, French, Spanish and Italian. Spanish has been introduced this year in place of German. Most students take French in Year 9 (intake year) as they have already studied it at their feeder Middle Schools. Italian and Spanish are taken in addition to French in Year 9, with roughly half the year choosing Italian and half choosing Spanish. 
Students may choose to study a language in Year 10, up to GCSE.  Some choose to study two languages.  At present, at GCSE level, we have 5 classes of French and 2 of Italian.  
We also have Year 12 and 13 students studying all three languages at AS and A level.   We follow AQA at GCSE, with a coursework option, and OCR for French and Spanish, with Edexcel for Italian at Sixth Form level.  French is using Tout Terrain as a teaching base but also authentic documents and a varieties of websites.
Languages are taught in dedicated rooms.  We have TVs/videos in every room, good listening facilities, laptops for all staff and projectors for use with them. We also recently acquired 2 Interactive White Boards.
There is a full-time head of department, teaching French and there are four other part-time teachers teaching French, Italian and Spanish. 
We are a helpful and close-knit department, working to ensure support and encouragement all round.  Despite recent Government moves to downgrade languages, the department remains buoyant and high profile within the school.

Mr M Henique
Head of Department
French