Students from Kings Norton Girls’ School put their futures’ into perspective recently when they took part in a BLC workshop to raise awareness of the importance of language skills.

One hundred and fifty Year 9 girls listened avidly to business speaker Helene Adlard, from Wragge and Co’s Birmingham office, as she explained how languages have benefitted her career.

At the end of the presentation students were free to question their Business Language Champion on her career path, why she chose languages at an early age and how these skills have increased her social and travel opportunities.

The aim of the session was to promote languages as a life-long skill and not simply something to sit an exam in at school and Helene was impressed with the way the students grasped this concept, she said:
“It was interesting for me to hear their thoughts on why language learning is important.  I thought they participated very well and asked some really good questions at the end.”

Henryk Piotrowski, languages teacher at Kings Norton Girls’ School was delighted with the event and commented:
“The general feedback from students was extremely positive and I do believe that it helped to change most students' perceptions of the importance of languages in the general workplace. Helene's talk also had the effect of stimulating further debate among the students because I was asked a multitude of language and work-related questions on our return to the classroom.”

For more information on other BLC events in the West Midlands please visit the RLN West Midlands website.

Pictured:  Helene Adlard from Wragge & Co speaks to Year 9 students at Kings Norton Girls’ School