Vocational Language Experience at Lymm High School

Vocational courses are a particularly strong feature of Lymm High School’s curriculum, and in devising and teaching  Vocational Language Experience  the school’s modern languages department has played an important role in contributing a language element to the vocational offering.

Vocational Language Experience is very well established, having been offered at the school since September 2003, and refined over the years.  The course is an alternative to GCSE in a language, and allows 14-16 year olds who start a vocational course in year 10 to learn French or German or Spanish as an integral part of it.  The language component is specifically designed to engage the students’ interest, and to support and extend the vocational knowledge they are acquiring. It is therefore directly linked to a student’s chosen vocational course and concentrates largely on the vocabulary commonly used in the specific vocational specialism, and on the sort of oral interactions and written tasks required in the workplace.

As with all successful projects, the planning is thorough, and responds  appropriately and sensibly to learning needs.  The teachers take evident pride in these courses and it is clear that there is meaningful collaboration between the languages department and vocational departments.  The success of the school’s work in enhancing personal pathways in this way has been recognised by the EU Leonardo programme as an example of good practice.

The Vocational Language Experience courses are popular with students – there are currently 300 of them  engaged on these courses at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5.

All students on Vocational Language Experience courses undertake work experience in mainland Europe, in a country where the language they are learning is spoken. This is completely funded by an EU Leonardo grant, and involves links with the Lycée Professionnel Charles Cros in Carcassonne, La Manga Club in La Manga, Spain, and the Christoph Jacob Treu Gymnasium, Nurenberg.  Work experience abroad is an important part of the course, and clearly a very valuable experience for the students,  since it not only broadens their horizons, but also allows them opportunities to use the language they have been learning in a real setting, and to experience a foreign work environment.

Vocational Language Experience offers Lymm High School students really worthwhile opportunities to continue learning a language after the age of 14, and in a way that they find appealing and motivating. The change at Key Stage 4 to a different style of learning languages gives  them the motivation to work hard and gain success.  In addition, this model is very flexible, and can accommodate a range of students with different learning histories, including those transferring from other schools.