Year 7 – All students study in mixed ability groups. French, German or Spanish are taught as a first foreign language. The courses are Avantage, Auf Deutsch and Arriba.

Year 8 – setting takes place within each half year. All students continue with French, German or Spanish as their first language. Almost half the Year also study a second foreign language (French, German, Russian or Spanish).

Years 10 and 11 – students maintain their study of at least one language and proceed to GCSE in French, German, Spanish and Russian. Some also study a second language. The course used in French is Francoscope à la Mode, in German Fokus Deutsch, in Spanish Español a la Vista and in Russian Iskra. All students follow a full course, either London Edexcel or SEG modular boards. We have not introduced short courses.

Years 12 and 13 – students are prepared for the ‘A’ level offered by AQA and a variety of authentic source material is used in French, German and Spanish. In Russian they are prepared for the ‘A’ level offered by London Edexcel. French students follow the Zénith course, German students-Schauplatz,  whilst Russian students use Transit and Poshli Dalshe.

Our Adult Education programme offers evening courses leading to the Institute of Linguists qualifications in French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian and Japanese. Several staff help tutor these courses and all Sixth Form students have free access to them.

Experienced and well qualified, there are six full-time staff and five part-timers. We have German, French and Spanish language assistants (who are shared with a neighbouring school), plus a part-time Russian assistant. In addition to the Head of Department (+4) there is a +1 allowance for the Deputy Head of Languages and a +1 allowance for the specialist teachers in charge of French and Spanish.

There are four full-size language rooms, which are well equipped, newly decorated and comfortably furnished, and a Faculty room. The department has four televisions, video recorders with c.100 hours of recorded material on videocassette, cassette recorders and overhead projectors in every room. Two of the language rooms have computers connected to the school network. We also make use of four group listening stations. The department also has access to the school’s well-equipped computer rooms.

Theale Green has an exchange with Houdan (c.40 miles west of Paris) which is twinned with nearby Pangbourne. The exchange was started some fourteen years ago, and regularly attracts about 50 students. The exchange sometimes also involves other departments e.g. PE, Music and Technology. All our ‘A’ level French students take part in a work experience exchange to France. We have recently set up a new Spanish exchange with a school in Cartagena, Murcia.

A unique exchange with a Gesamtschule in Bielefeld was a joint venture with the Drama department and involved our students performing in Germany and vice-versa. This now runs as a pure language exchange, with Sixth Formers taking part in work experience.

We had our first Russian exchange with an English speciality school in Voronezh in 1991 and this contact has continued with a visit by staff from Theale Green in 1992 and student exchanges in 1994 and 1997.

There are also at least four other trips abroad from the school which are not organised by the language faculty but in which we do have an involvement. Recent visits have included Florence, Provence, Greece, Paris, Northern Italy and Amsterdam.

Students from Reading University Department of Education spend time with us on teaching practice and we have excellent links with them. Theale Green has been accredited for teacher training with Reading University under the developing Government regulations.

The development of our school as a community school is opening many new opportunities for involvement in Adult Education and other community activities such as twinning organisations.