German

“it is important to us to raise cultural awareness through our teaching as much as possible”

We were very fortunate to be supported in our aims to engage our students and to bring out the best in them by our brilliant and talented Language Assistant, Lennart. When our regular exchange to Warendorf could not happen this year, we focused on bringing pupils in close contact with German culture in the classroom instead. Lennart, who was a great asset to the German Department, inspired our students with his natural ability, creating fun conversation lessons using inspirational material to get the pupils speaking German. Our Upper Sixth students rated him as the best assistant they could have wished for as he created stimulating, interesting and challenging material to get them to talk about their A Level topics.

With the support of the German teachers, Lennart led a project as German Cultural Exchange Ambassador organised by the UKGerman Connection. The project focused on sustainability in the local area and our students researched this topic and exchanged information with two schools in Germany. Our Lower School students created posters, sustainable gift boxes for Christmas and artefacts which they then sent to the German schools. The Second Years were lucky enough to be able to open the boxes that were sent to us by the German schools in January, so not only did they learn about sustainability in Germany but they were also able to sample the German sweets that were included in the parcels we were sent.

In line with our cultural theme of this academic year we celebrated St. Nikolaustag on 6 December. First Years were able to sing the song ‘Lasst uns froh und munter sein’, a traditional German St. Nikolaus song, and they were able to experience what it is like to be a German child waking up on the morning of 6 December and finding sweets in their shoes. An assortment of Lebkuchen, chocolates and other sweets was not only welcomed by the First Years, but all students studying German were eating delicious German biscuits in their lessons around St. Nikolaustag. All year groups enjoyed a presentation by Lennart on how Christmas is celebrated in his house and he had already planned to do the same for Easter when the period of home learning started. Lennart continued to support our Fifth Years and Upper Sixth students brilliantly in their online courses during lockdown. The students benefitted greatly from continuing spoken lessons with him conducted in Teams all the way from Germany. It is important to us to raise cultural awareness through our teaching as much as possible and, to that effect, Lennart was asked to visit the German Club in the Junior School and present German traditions to younger students. He did the same at Herne Junior School and all children in both settings were very appreciative of him visiting them.

Two Upper Sixth students, Megan Knight and Max Walton, acted as helpers in the Second and Third Year. They worked with individual students who benefitted from extra support and those whose existing German ability needed extending. I am delighted that both these students have chosen to study German at university.

The German Department is very much looking forward to organising the exchange to Warendorf and the Christmas Market trip to Cologne when it is possible to travel safely abroad again as a school group. Both trips are of high linguistic and cultural value and we cannot wait to launch them again.

Dr A Broomfield