On Valentine's Day 2020, our Modern Languages team hosted the 10th anniversary of the ‘Love Languages’ Competition.

Ten years on and Freemen’s Love Languages competition is as popular as ever.  This highly successful languages competition has now been running since 2011 when it was won by Ashford Priors Prep School and Pennthorpe School.  We congratulate this year’s winners, Newland House School and Notre Dame on their polished and imaginative performances on the theme of celebration and of course the number 10. 

Organised by Sarah Hankin, our Head of Modern Languages, it is the 10 year anniversary of this unique competition. It was a real delight to welcome so many schools and pupils with a passion for languages to Freemen’s. Pupils from Years 5 to 8 from both local state and private schools from Surrey and Kent took part in the language competition.

Sarah Hankin, Head of Languages commented “when I first came up with the concept for this competition, I did not imagine that I would be hosting our tenth anniversary in 2020. It is thanks to the dedication of language teachers and the enthusiasm and creativity of the pupils that the event continues to be such an important part of the Freemen’s calendar”.

To mark the special anniversary of this popular event, it was held on Valentine’s Day to tie in with the title and pupils were judged by a panel of external independent judges with a wealth of expertise in this field. The competition began at 10am and ended with a prize giving ceremony. In marking the performances, the judges were looking for three things; quality of language, creativity and originality and quality of performance.

Pupils from Freemen’s competed against pupils from Avenue Primary School in Sutton, Newland House School in Twickenham, Ashford Prep in Great Chart, The Raleigh School in West Horsley, Kingswood House School in Epsom, St David’s and Box Hill School in Dorking, Therfield School in Leatherhead, Manor House School in Great Bookham, Notre Dame School in Cobham and Nonsuch High School for Girls in Cheam.

At Freemen’s we firmly believe it is important to engender a sense of enjoyment and confidence in the language from a very early stage. We have a team of eight full and part-time staff in the Modern Languages Department, who teach from Form 1 (Year 3) in the Junior School to Upper 6 (Year 13) in the Senior School.

The languages we offer are French, German and Spanish and all three languages have equal status within the school. In the Junior School, pupils in Year 3 and 4 have the opportunity to ‘taste’ all three languages on offer through our languages carousel. In Year 5, pupils choose their first language. The second language is introduced in Year 8. Pupils then study two languages from a choice of French, German, Spanish or Latin until their GCSE options when all pupils study at least one language.

Pupils also benefit from one lesson per week in the language laboratory and have one session per week with one of our three Foreign Language Assistants.

Competition Results 

Years 5 & 6
Winner – Newland House School
2nd Place – Ashford Prep
Highly Commended – Kingswood House School

Years 7 & 8
Winner – Notre Dame School
2nd Place – Manor House School
Highly Commended – Therfield School