Teacher of MFL (Maternity Cover)

The vision for the department is that the curriculum aims to equip students with languages as a skill for life: the ability to communicate in French or Spanish for further study, work or for leisure and travel abroad, truly engaging with their community and beyond. We aim for our curriculum to develop student's cultural awareness, fostering an open-minded attitude towards other cultures and encouraging students to embrace that fact we live in a rich and diverse world with different customs, perspectives, history, arts and literature. Currently, nearly all students study either French or Spanish to GCSE.

Languages are an integral part of school life at The Archer Academy and much valued by our community. To prepare students for the demands of the new GCSE specification, we deliver the AQA FCSE in Year 9, lead homestays to both Rouen, France and Benalmadena, Spain and offer a range of additional language learning and enrichment opportunities and competitions to enthuse our students.

The MFL Department is led by an experienced Director of MFL and consists of four teachers. Colleagues have a range of experience and responsibilities within the wider school community. Additionally, the department works closely with external agencies to provide additional learning opportunities for students as well as CPD for staff.

The Department places a strong emphasis on the importance of creativity, skills-based learning and metacognition to motivate our students and enable their success. Our Schemes of work are based around the Dynamo (French) and Viva! (Spanish) Schemes of Work at Key Stage 3 and the Viva! for AQA and Studio for French at Key Stage Four. Our team plans in collaboration and resources are shared to ensure that best practice is amongst the team and new ideas are regularly disseminated in departmental team meetings to ensure that our teaching is always creative, engaging and appropriate to students' needs.

Teaching across the department is regularly graded as "Outstanding". Both French and Spanish results at GCSE are consistently excellent with over 80% of grades typically being at 4+. In 2023, over 35% of all grades were at 7+. Over the past two years, over 20% of all grades have been at Grade 9. We are ambitious in our approach for all of our students and every year a healthy number of students continue their language study at A-level.