A secondary school is celebrating three years of success as a language college and looking forward to many more.

The Harwich School invited various sponsors and community leaders to a lunch.

Staff and pupils showed how the school had benefited from having specialist school status, and how it was preparing to bid for more funding to carry on its work.

Lynne Gettings, language college co-ordinator, told guests: "Top of the achievements list has got to be our GCSE results, which have risen steadily.

"Our results speak volumes when the figures also show that the school is in one of the most deprived areas in the county. The value we are adding to students is tremendous."

Among the achievements are:

The school has won an improvement award, come top in language competitions against rival schools and exceeded the national A-level pass rate for the first time

Foreign trips have been subsidised by travel firms and students have been to France, Germany and Holland

All students study at least one language to GCSE and half study two

Pupils in nearby primary schools have also been visited and given a taste of the French and German language

In January a Chinese teacher will be visiting for six months, and an after-school class to learn Mandarin will be launched

There has been £100,000-worth of sponsorship, £100,000 of Government cash and £123,000 for the past three years.

The first phase is now coming to an end and the school will bid soon for the second phase.

Published Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Brought to you by the Evening Gazette