We’ve now moved into our fantastic new building and are settling in nicely. There’s a real buzz about the place at the moment and staff and pupils alike seem to really like the space!

This year we are pleased to welcome four new language assistants. Lingqiu (pronounced “Ling Choh”) Cai (pronounced “Tsai”) arrived on 14 September and is currently teaching all year 7 pupils Mandarin Chinese. Lingqiu is from the Guangdong province of China, not very far away from Shenzhen where our partner school Bibo is situated. A huge thank you to Father Philip who welcomed her into his home during her first two weeks here until her new home was made ready for her, without his help we would have been really stuck for somewhere for Lingqiu to live.

Lucia Pnjak arrived at the end of September. She is from Austria and will be our German teaching assistant. She will be taking small groups for conversation lessons and generally helping out in German classes.

Nathalie Paciarelli also arrived at the end of September. She is from Belgium and will be helping out in French lessons. Like Lucia, Nathalie will also be taking small groups for conversation classes and will also be helping out in French classes.

We are also pleased to welcome Linda Püssa to our school. Linda is our Estonian assistant, and comes to us through the British Council’s Comenius Assistant programme. This is the first time we have hosted a language assistant through the Comenius programme so we are really excited by this opportunity. Linda will be teaching her own language (Estonian) as well as Russian lessons through lunchtime clubs, Sixth Form enrichment sessions and also via our Evening Classes. Lingqiu and Linda will also be teaching Chinese, Russian and Estonian to those of our feeder primary schools who have expressed interest in such lessons.

Thank you to everyone who has offered accommodation for our four assistants. We are extremely grateful as without you we could not provide this opportunity for our students to be exposed to such a rich variety of languages.