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July 7th 2021

Announcing our GCHQ Languages Week winners

On Thursday 1 July, Year 8 and 9 were visited by two GCHQ language analysts, who presented a talk about their jobs, and how they built up the necessary skills to do them.

After hearing the experiences of these two language analysts, the girls participated in a investigation task, in which they had to find the location in which a theoretical 'attack' would take place. They had the opportunity to use knowledge of the French language to decode messages, and problem solving skills to find the corresponding phone numbers and coordinates.

Finally, they were lucky enough to have a short Arabic taster lesson. This really opened minds to learning some more languages outside of the European ones learnt at school, as while they may be more difficult, they are equally as interesting and useful.

You can view the excellent Languages Week video below.

'As someone who is fascinated by languages, and would like to continue them in my future studies, I really enjoyed hearing about this very interesting usage of language skills. Prior to the visit, I was completely unaware that this job existed, and so it was fascinating to hear about the day-to-day tasks that language analysts are set. The speakers were very engaging and I was particularly interested to hear all of the other skills (aside from language skills) that are incorporated into the role, such as knowledge of international relations and cyber skills. These are all areas I have interest in, and so I found it very useful to be able to visualise what I may actually be able to do with my set of skills and interests.' Zoe,Year 9

'I enjoyed learning more about languages we aren’t taught in school. It was very interesting to talk to people who speak multiple languages and learn about they’re past experiences and their workspace in GCHQ. The missions were interesting as they included many different languages. I loved learning some Arabic.'- Lois, 8H

'I really enjoyed languages week because it was very interesting learning about different languages outside of languages we already learn in school and the missions were exciting. I liked watching the short films. It was also helpful to listen to people fluently speaking in that language in day to day life. It was quite fun dressing up as detectives/spies and having the feeling of being in ‘Mission impossible’. Overall language week was very enjoyable!' - Stephanie, 8H

Please find the winners of our Languages Week.

Year 7:

Grand Winner: Alannah. All tasks in all languages

Sophia: German tasks and photo.

Lily: German and Spanish tasks

Katerina: German and Spanish tasks

Beth: Video in French

Ella: Video in Spanish

Cynthia: Video in Mandarin

Maya: Video in Spanish/ French

Natasha: Video in Spanish

Year 8: