Telephone: 01676 535222 | Email: Office@heart-england.co.uk
Languages are an excellent choice at GCSE! Having a GCSE in languages is extremely well-regarded by employers and universities alike. Here is some information about how important languages are:
We offer a GCSE in all three languages, French, German and Spanish. Come and learn how just a little bit of language knowledge can go a long way!
We follow the AQA GCSE Specification:
Students in Year 10 (2016-2017 academic year) study all of the following themes on which the assessments are based.
For students in Year 10 (2016-2017 academic year) all exams will be sat at the end of the course and will be assessed in the four skills of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing with each skill having an equal weighting of 25% towards the overall GCSE grade.
GCSE languages have a Foundation Tier (grades 1-5) and a Higher Tier (grades 4-9). All four question papers are taken at the same tier. Please note that tiers cannot be mixed as has been the case in the past.
More Information available on the AQA Wesbite:
For students in Year 11 (2016-2017 academic year) only the Reading and Listening papers will be sat at the end of the course and will be assessed in the four skills of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing with Reading and Listening being 20% each and Writing and Speaking 30% each. Writing and Speaking are Controlled Assessment with the two best pieces in each skill to be submitted to the exam board by May.
More Information available on the AQA Wesbite:
For this specification we have a range of past papers on the school’s shared area:
*Only available by logging in from school or through the portal from home.
We offer a GCSE in all three languages, French, German and Spanish. For you to progress and succeed at GCSE you need to choose languages already studied in Year 9.
The German Exchange has been successfully running for the past 22 years. It is open to all students in Years 9 and 10 not just students studying German. The Exchange is a cultural trip, which allows students to enhance their language skills. It takes place in December and March of each academic year. Heart of England students stay with host families in December and the German students come over to Balsall Common in March. It is an excellent experience for all involved.
It is strongly recommended that students purchase bilingual dictionaries to support their learning and encourage independent study. We have negotiated a significant discount from Oxford and will place an order at the start of the next academic year.
Complementary Subject Combinations and Enrichment Activities
Languages have a solid reputation with universities and employers alike. At GCSE, a MFL is one of the five subjects needed to gain the EBac. At A-Level, a MFL will compliment and enhance many other A-Level subjects, whether you are orientated towards Maths/Science, or to English, Law, Business or Art.
We also have a Foreign Language Assistant to support German speaking, and a Spanish native speaker in our team who can offer conversation at A-Level or GCSE.
The AQA Website (for those students studying languages in Year 10 2016-2017 academic year) for each language can be found here:
The AQA Specimen Papers, Mark Schemes & Specifications for each language can be found here:
The AQA Website (for those students studying languages in Year 11 2016-2017 academic year) for each language can be found here:
We run a Parental Explanation Evening in late September each year to inform both parents and students about what resources we have to support the students’ learning, study tips and additional information. All past papers for students in Year 11 (academic year 2016-2017) are found on the school’s shared area here:
*Only available by logging in from school or through the portal from home.
We have GCSE Resource Packs to support students’ learning. These are available to download and are found on the school’s shared area here:
*Only available by logging in from school or through the portal from home.
These resources contain a number of key resources like the A* Checklist, grammar PowerPoints and vocab lists.
We have past papers for all three subjects and these are on:
*Only available by logging in from school or through the portal from home.
Websites that we would recommend to support learning languages are:
Other apps which we would recommend are: