The French Department
French has an ever more important rôle at Summer Fields. Not only is there a ten-day visit to France for everyone in both the Third Year (Year 6) and the Fourth Year (Year 7), but within the school there is a strong tradition of fostering the learning of Modern Languages per se. Despite limited available space in the curriculum, German was introduced a few years ago and is taught to one of the Fourth Year and one of the Fifth Year (Year 8) classes.
The teaching of French is organised to make the best use of the very talented and committed staff in the department, one of whom is half French and two of whom live in France during the school holidays. From the Third Year, the boys all receive either five or six lessons of French each week; but, perhaps uniquely in the prep school world, our timetabling arrangements allow each boy to benefit from at least one lesson a week in which an additional full-time teacher takes small groups for speaking practice.
The course studied by the majority of boys is So You Really Want to Learn French, a series in three parts, of which the third is published in December 2007. Already used in many other schools, this course was written by our Head of Department, and as such is closely geared to the needs of the prep school student. Parents whose children will be coming late into the school might like to prepare them for entry by obtaining copies of the course from www.galorepark.co.uk. We aim to cover the first two books in the first three years.
Scholarship students are provided with fresh, new worksheets whose subject matter comes from up-to-date news stories in the French press, as well as the more traditional sources. Classes include frequent discussion in French about the issues raised. Our mission is to avoid the temptation to ‘dumb down’ in Modern Languages, and we strive to teach boys the structure and character of French as well as French culture and what is needed for examinations.