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Smithdon High School

GCSE Options

Our GCSE Options

Choosing to study a Modern Foreign Language at GCSE is a way of ensuring that your options for the future are as wide as possible.

Whereas at KS3 our languages are taught over 4 hours each fortnight, at KS4 that increases to 5 hours. 

GCSE French and German are tiered exams, with a Foundation and a Higher tier. There are four parts to each exam, which reflect the four key skills in MFL, and each part is worth 25% of the total: 

Speaking Listening Reading Writing

Students prepare a chosen topic for conversation and are asked to speak about other topics they are given on prompt cards. 

Students listen to a range of texts and conversations, answering questions in both English and the target language.

A range of texts in the target language assess the student’s understanding, through questions in both English and the target language.

A choice of tasks allows students to write on a topic in a range of forms (letter, email, etc). Picture description is also used.

We follow the GCSE Edexcel specifications. Find out more about these exams

by following the link for French or German.