Specialist Teacher: Pate's Grammar School 

Languages: French, German 

Current role: NCLE Specialist Teachers in the Isbourne Language Hub, Head of Languages at Pate's

Experience
I have been blessed in my role as Head of the Languages Faculty here since 2010 leading a strong, numerous faculty and overseeing the Teaching and Learning of 4 modern foreign languages: French, German, Mandarin and Spanish. NPQSL qualified, I sit on our Academic Board and oversee our participation in the Mandarin Excellence Programme. In and before my time here we have maintained uptake against a national picture of decline, including for German, retained excellent, experienced and committed practitioners thanks to our collegiate, creative and wholly collaborative ethos, and steadily raised the profile of language-learning. I am a German and French specialist with almost 20 years classroom experience and near-native competency in German. My NCLE Isbourne Language Hub work is an invigorating chance to show solidarity to fellow practitioners, share, explore and support, champion language-learning and inspire pupils to keep their languages going for as long as possible!                           

What was your initial motivation to learn another language?
I think it was a combination of factors in my early childhood. Beginning with feeling a little bit different thanks to my father being in the RAF: I was born in North-west Germany, felt a connection to Europe, and when I started learning German in Year 9 it really clicked. I also had a great-uncle who taught me some French, linked to his fascination with the history of the D-Day landings, and I still have the French poem he gifted that explained my character traits and name. When I was 8, my mum saved up to take us to Barcelona on my first summer holiday abroad and I can still remember the Usbourne beginners Spanish book and cassette tape I borrowed from Tewkesbury Library in the 1980s!