MFL Trips

At Wapping High, we believe that the study of languages is an essential aspect of our curriculum as it enables our young people to broaden their horizons and to become global citizens. All students study Spanish when they join the school and GCSE Spanish is a popular subject taught by native and expert teachers. We are proud to be able to offer trips abroad to Spanish speaking countries most years. These are often fully funded because of our involvement in the Turing Scheme. Such trips give our students the opportunity to practise their language skills and to experience different cultures. This year, students visited Barcelona and spent time with our partner school in Vic. Last year, our KS4 students also visited Costa Rica where they were involved in a social action project in the rainforest.

Students also have the option to study Mandarin and take part in subsidised trips to China. Last year our year 9 Mandarin students went to Shanghai where they benefited from a unique intensive language programme provided by the Mandarin Excellence Programme. Thanks to China Gateway, we also had the pleasure to welcome at Wapping High thirty students from different schools in China. This gave our students a great opportunity to practise their Mandarin language skills and to also better understand the culture and customs of young people from a different country.

With over 35 languages spoken in our school community, we also enter lots of students for GCSEs in their home languages and we encourage our students to keep developing those bilingual skills.

Horizon Scanning and International Visitors

Our teachers are passionate about sharing their expertise and also about learning from other practitioners both in the UK and beyond. Leaders at Wapping have visited schools in the USA and Scandinavia and the school has also hosted an international SAIL conference on education. Each year the school hosts visits from teachers from Italy who are keen to see the way learning takes place in our British classrooms and to exchange ideas. Some of our students are bilingual Italian speakers and they have taken the lead at showing our visitors how we learn at Wapping.