Cox Green School
Highfield Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire

Person in charge of project: Richard Hamilton

Cox Green is a mixed non-selective secondary school with sixth form, having 800 pupils on the roll.

In 1992 the MFL department achieved sponsorship from a local company to build a language centre. The centre was constructed over a 6-month period and opened in June 1993. Since then it has been used intensively and extensively by Sixth Form modern language students to improve their achievement and prepare them to be independent learners, whether in Higher Education or other career paths.

Objectives of the project

• To quantify the benefits of access to the ARCO Centre's satellite television, audio and IT resources for post-16 students following languages courses
• To develop suitable resources for such self-supported study, in a time-effective way
• To encourage students to become independent learners when using the ARCO Centre, choosing from a range of material in a variety of media, as a prelude to Higher Education or the world of work

• The Centre is linked to the Reuters On-line Education Service, which allows users to search for articles in the target language.
• Video clips and transcripts were purchased from the BBC and permission was granted to use the Centre's multiple video copying facility to sell these to other Berkshire schools
• European news is video-recorded from a satellite channel on a 10-day cycle in each language taught in the school which students may watch in the Centre or take home
• The project has led to the production of a speaking practice programme containing business-related phrases for students following GNVQ Leisure & Tourism
• Using Fun with Texts the project has developed textfiles for Advanced level courses in French, German and Spanish. Students were used as proof-readers for the textfiles as part of their self-supported study and then used them regularly to consolidate learning

• A level results have improved as the self-supported study scheme has become embedded into normal expectations of students
• In 1996, the school achieved its first Oxbridge MFL success
• The self-supported study programme has helped students progressing to MFL degree courses
• The time-efficient nature of the project has been of interest to staff at other schools

• In 1996 ARCO agreed to further investment which added multimedia to all computers
• New software programmes have been introduced, such as Camsoft's Gapkit in which gaps in a text are linked to a soundfile and Learning Support's Easy-to-Speak in which pupils hear a phrase, record their own attempt and compare the two