Institution: Comberton Village College

Context
Comberton Village College is a mixed, comprehensive 11-16 school of approximately 1400 pupils situated in a rural location, 5 miles west of Cambridge. It has specialist college statuses in Sport, Languages and Vocational and in addition is a Training School and a Leading Edge School. 

CoPE International is a course that staff at the school created originally by making a hybrid from ASDAN’s Certificate of Personal Effectiveness challenge-based portfolio-assessed Level 2 and Level 1 qualification and its International Award Scheme. The combined course is equivalent to a GCSE grade B if completed at level 2 or grade E if completed at grade 1.

It has now been formalised by ASDAN in conjunction with the QCA and is offered as CoPE through International Communications and Business Enterprise but it is essentially the same course as described above. The only further stipulation is that all of the Key Skills that must be evidenced (Improving Own Learning, Research, Working with Others, Problem Solving, Oral Presentation and Discussion) and completed through challenges that are linked to an international or enterprise theme. 

Key objectives

• to increase motivated uptake of language learning at KS4 for all students in the school
• to develop a course that is flexible, dialogic in design, based on collaborative planning and learning between teachers and students so that it responds to different learning styles and preferences
• to provide an alternative language pathway to GCSE that nevertheless provides the opportunity to gain level 2 (and 1) accreditation for language learning at KS4
• to include in the course the focus of a compelling learning experience in a target language (TL) country.

How the programme is organised
The whole CoPE International course represents one option at KS4, which is 3 lessons per week of curriculum time at Comberton. Challenges drawn from the International Award represent the majority of curriculum time. One sixth is explicitly language learning time, although 3 further key skills are built intrinsically on the study visit in the TL country, and these represent a further 50 percent of the total course. The remaining key skills (Working With Others and Research) apply learning through either International or Enterprise contexts.

 For the language learning (in this case Spanish), resources are used that are prepared by the teacher after discussion with students,. These include challenge sheets to give learning goals and outcomes, structured use of ICT packages and internet activities for individual practice, digital recorders for evidence collection but equally for repeated practice and self-evaluation, and also whole class teaching resources such as PowerPoint. 

For the wider challenges, there is the International Award booklet, and also the CoPE booklet. There are many suggested challenges here but it is also possible to create your own challenges or adapt those listed in the booklets. 

Further details of the course at Comberton can be found on Rachel Hawkes's blog.

Evidence of success
This course is now into its second year at the school. The Year 11 class has completed the International Award and the three wider key skills that have been linked to it and these portfolios were submitted and successfully moderated in December 2008. This means that the students have the equivalent of a short course GCSE. You do not have to submit in different parts but it was hoped this might encourage students at an early stage in the course. In 2009 the Year 11 students are completing the remainder of their challenges and their completed portfolios will be submitted at Easter. Of the class of fifteen students, one is no longer following the course as he is on an extended work placement, one will successfully complete the full course at Level 1, one will complete the International Award half only and gain half a GCSE at B grade (this is again due to an extended work placement schedule), and the remaining twelve are all on course to complete the full award at Level 2.
 
In Year 10 there are twenty students enrolled on the course. It is anticipated that two students will complete at Level 1 and eighteen at Level 2. So far they have successfully completed the Working With Others Key Skill through the challenge of organising two different International events at the school. Now, they are working on improving their Spanish before their 6-day study visit in Northern Spain, where they will spend time in the partner school and complete various challenges with the Spanish students there. 

For the students doing the course it has meant some positive and successful learning experiences in the classroom, which have served to break down the barriers of ‘I can’t’ and generate a sense of ‘I can’. The fact that this took several months to establish with the group is testament to how significantly deeply-embedded feelings of failure can impact negatively on student learning. This was the first step forward. Secondly, the project raised interest in another culture and kindled the desire to experience it first-hand. The study visit to Spain was a turning point for students on the course. Many needed to get passports especially for this trip and for some it was the first time out of England. One student summed her feelings up like this:

“We are very excited about going to Spain so we can use our language skills, the lessons are fun - we love them, they are different than other lessons as they are very interactive. We also enjoy the Euro talk as it is an easy way to learn the language”

Thirdly, the project has helped students to be more aware of themselves as learners and to begin to take a pride in their strengths. Because there is the flexibility for them to use different methods and because they are encouraged to experiment to find their own best strategies, students feel empowered to be more resilient in their learning.

Future developments
Offering this course is not an easy option for the department or the teacher. But it does work! It changes attitudes about language learning, it offers success at Level 2 or Level 1 as appropriate, it embeds the language learning in a wider context and includes flexible opportunities for students to include things that they are already good at, which all helps to improve motivation.

Now this course has been established in the school, there is no intention of turning back. Staff would be very happy to support any school that would be keen to introduce this course.

Author: Rachel Hawkes
Assistant Principal and Director of Language College, Comberton Village College