A first for Bishop Douglass School

By Diana Cormack
A partnership between the Portuguese Embassy and Bishop Douglass RC School is offering children and adults the chance to learn Portuguese. Cultural attaché Jose Pascoal visited the school in Hamilton Road to celebrate the start of the partnership, which is aimed at promoting cultural understanding and academic achievement.

For the first time in a Barnet school, Portuguese will be taught at Bishop Douglass, which has over 30 pupils for whom it is the mother-tongue. This reflects the number of native Portuguese speakers in the local population, who may have come from Angola, Brazil or Portugal.

A teacher supplied by the Portuguese embassy will give lessons to school pupils and members of the community on Thursdays. Isabelle Goursade, manager of the school’s additional needs department, sees the alliance as providing an opportunity for students to take GCSE and A-levels in their first language, thus helping to build their confidence in other subjects.

Languages thrive
Over half the 812 pupils at Bishop Douglass are bilingual and the school is keen to maintain cultural ties across the community and to foster parental involvement. Teaching languages is one of the ways it achieves this. Polish is already taught to Barnet residents and hopefully Romanian will soon be on offer to outside students. Lithuanian is next on the agenda.

If you are interested in learning any of these languages, please phone Isabelle Goursand on 020 8444 5211.

The Archer

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