Salterns Academy Trust Schools recognised for excellence in languages

Portsmouth-based pair Admiral Lord Nelson School and Trafalgar School are celebrating after being selected as one of only 15 lead language hubs to join the National Consortium for Languages Education’s centre for excellence.

As lead schools they will work with partner schools with the aim of improving languages learning across the 7-16 age range , as well as encouraging pupils from all backgrounds to study languages through to further and higher education.

This announcement is the next step in the rollout of the government’s flagship language hubs programme, which will raise national interest in studying languages and drive more pupils to study them throughout their education from primary schools onwards.

National Data from this year’s GCSE entries showed that modern foreign languages have become increasingly popular as a subject, with a 5.1% increase in GCSE entries in 2023 compared to last year and a 9.2% increase compared to 2019.

There were a total of 39,896 entries across the 15 languages covered by the ‘modern foreign languages’ category, comfortably above the 34,707 entries for German.

Within the group, Chinese jumped year-on-year from 5,504 entries to 7,091, Polish rose from 6,003 to 6,938 and Arabic increased from 4,931 to 5,171.

Claire Copeland, Director of Education at the Salterns Academy Trust and Executive Head of Trafalgar School said: “We are delighted that the strong leadership of languages by Rebecca Britti and Aamir Kohli in our two schools has been recognised nationally.

"Now they will be able to share their passion for languages learning across the local region.”

Nys Hardingham, CEO of the Salterns Academy Trust, added: “ We pride ourselves on providing an inclusive education experience for all of our students.

"We are proud to have achieved recognition for the excellent languages education we deliver and being a languages hub lead will enable us to share our approach and expertise and ensure as many students as possible are able to benefit from an excellent education in languages“

*The NCLE comprises of University College London, the British Council and the Goethe-Institut, the latter being a German language school in London.

The Salterns Academy Trust was formed when Admiral Lord Nelson School became a converter academy in 2014.