This half-term, 41 BGS students from Year 9 and Year 10 have been selected to participate in two virtual outreach workshops hosted by GCHQ, the largest intelligence agency in the UK. As the government's premier employer of linguists, GCHQ is always seeking bilingual graduates who can contribute to the cybersecurity of the UK.

Most impressively, two weeks ago, seventeen Year 9 students attended an interactive session tailored specifically for French speakers, led by a GCHQ language analyst. The students decoded messages in French and participated in a Q&A session regarding career opportunities at GCHQ.

We are currently gearing up for the GCHQ National Language Competition, which will take place from Monday, November 6th to Friday, November 10th, 2023. This virtual competition pits teams from schools across the UK against each other in solving language-based puzzles to earn points. There is still time to sign up - for more information, please email giglione_m@bexleygs.co.uk.

Ms Giglione, MFL Department

 I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as it showcased the diversity among the language analysts at GCHQ. It also presented the methods they employ when working with different scenarios. It helped many of us understand how important learning a language is when it comes to careers that will come after it and how this recruitment is needed for linguists.

Leo Demyan, 9STA

Languages are essential for communication, and they are extremely important to society as well as creating jobs that require a creativity AI can not achieve.

Diep Anh Nguyen, 10LPV

Having a languages degree can be very useful, helps you to meet new people and enhances communication skills. What I also found interesting was how they discussed online translators, and how the job of translating can not always be done by AI, because a lot of languages have phrases that mean different things to their direct and literal meaning. Thank you for giving me this opportunity; it was really interesting to see where my love for languages could take me!

Hana Ostrowski, 10DCC

Being able to learn new languages gives you the freedom to communicate and learn about other cultures. Acquiring new knowledge and looking at things from a different perspective. Knowing multiple languages can also make you more employable.

Elin Mecaj, 10LPV

For the first time ever, along with my classmates, I took part in the Annual Titschen Competition. Titschen is the German name for an egg fight, in which painted/coloured eggs clash together in an “arena”. After a short countdown: drei… zwei… eins… tisch!” the 2 eggs collide with each other. One will inevitably crack and one will stay strong.

My experience of Titschen in school was amazing! Even though I did not win, I enjoyed it very much as the tension rose throughout the competition.

Congratulations to Billy for winning the competition and I hope we will be able to take part in this tradition again next year.

Kristian Nachev, Year 7

On the morning of Friday the 22nd of April the most epic Annual Titschen Competition the world has ever seen took place. The hard-boiled eggs were dressed to impress many in the colours of the German flag and one particularly dashing egg had the Berlin Skyline in silhouette embossed across its midriff, another was in traditional Tracht: Lederhosen. It was a rollercoaster of emotions: there were highs and there were lows. From Zidan's heroic dash to Reception to collect his misplaced battle egg, which got him through 2 rounds of legendary titschen to an unfortunate explosion during play between Hailey (who had forgotten to hard-boil her egg) and a good humoured Jamie, which saw both Jamie and I being covered in raw egg and the moment the crowd went wild as Billy was crowned Titschen King leaving a defeated Jack in the dust as runner-up! 7JOO, you are true warriors, I am very proud of you all.

Miss Reed, MFL Department

 

In celebration of the 700th anniversary of the death of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of La Divina Commedia - Inferno, Purgatorio e Paradiso, the University of Oxford is running the Dante 700 Competition and more than 50 BGS students of Italian took part in this cultural initiative.

In the MFL Department, Italian teachers took this chance to teach KS3 and KS4 students about Dante’s Inferno, with a focus on Lucifer. Dante is one of the most influential Italian authors of all time and Inferno is part of the Italian school syllabus at KS3, KS4 and KS5. Students were asked to produce either a visual or a written response to Dante’s masterpiece and the result was a tremendous amount of imaginative entries (including a Dante-themed focaccia and a Lucifer-inspired cake!), which have now all been submitted to the university portal for the national competition. We have high hopes that some of these works will feature in an online anthology on the Oxford University website to be published soon.

Best of luck to all our participants (or as we say in Italian, in bocca al lupo!)

Miss Giglione, MFL Department

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to view the Dante 700 gallery. 

 

Our Year 8 Spanish beginners have been studying Picasso and Cubism this term. They have come up with some tremendous Cubist pictures of their own!  Well done Sienna and Alice for your amazing creative and linguistic skills in Spanish!

Ms Adlington, Year 8 Spanish Teacher

 

你好 this week is International Celebration week, and during our Chinese lesson, we learnt about the Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节 and how it is celebrated in China. We learnt about the way it symbolises the gathering of friends and family and the gratitude for a good harvest. We also learnt the date on which the Mid-Autumn Festival is held, being the 15th day of the 8th Lunar month of the year. It is also believed that on the night of the festival, the moon will be at its brightest and fullest of the year. In my opinion, the Mid-Autumn Festival is similar to the Western harvest festival as they both symbolise the thanks given for a good harvest. I was most curious about the stories surrounding the Mid-Autumn Festival such as how Chang’e flew to the moon by becoming a fairy after drinking Hou Yi’s elixir of immortality or about Wu Gang and the cherry bay tree he was never able to chop down upon his mission to achieve immortality. Overall, I deeply enjoyed learning about the Mid-Autumn Festival as well as the stories and traditions which come with it.

Behzod Marufov 贝德 Year 9

 

你好，this lesson taught me a lot about other cultures and how they celebrate certain things and why. It showed me there's a lot of difference between Britain and other countries' celebrations that we don’t know much about. I would recommend this lesson to others as it was an educational, but fun way to learn about different cultures, celebrations, foods and beliefs. I was looking forward to this lesson as I enjoy learning about the other ways people celebrate especially the stories behind all the things they do during festivals. In the lesson, we learnt about the Moon Festival and all the different foods they have e.g. mooncakes and what they do to celebrate e.g. light lanterns. I enjoyed making mooncakes with chocolate muffins in the mould and seeing how they're made. The most surprising thing I learnt today was how to make mooncakes as I never knew how they made the shapes and patterns on the top. I also enjoyed learning about the stories behind the festival as it was interesting to hear about how it all started. 

Malou Wagner Poedenphant 玛洛, Year 9

 

你好，this lesson definitely changed my mindset on the way about cultural activities as it makes me realise that cultural activities are not just all about learning, but understanding and having a fun way to experience things as in our Chinese Cultural lesson, we were given mini chocolate chip cupcakes to shape into a mooncake using a mooncake mould/press. I would certainly recommend this type of lesson on the Mid-Autumn Festival as it is fun and nice to learn about as some people don’t even though there is a Chinese festival in the Chinese Culture. Overall, I experienced a fun and enjoyable lesson today as I knew that Chinese people celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as Mooncake Festival), but I never knew how it originally started, so it was nice to know how it originated and the background of it. If I could, I would want to learn more on how they make the mooncake and the mould as it seems quite hard to be able to mould such an intricate design onto the mooncake.

Jessica Wong 嘉雯, Year 9

 

你好. The Mid-Autumn Festival or the Moon Festival is a celebration that takes place on a full moon where people admire the moon, eat mooncakes, pomelo fruit and osmanthus delicacies, release sky lanterns, send gifts to others, and have a large family dinner. We learned about the story of how this festival came to be and then made our own mooncakes for the occasion. The cakes fell apart a bit, but it was fun! What surprised me about this festival was the rabbit mascot on the moon and how it ties into the story of Chang’e and the Moon Festival. It was a nice festival experience because of all the activities involved that I would definitely recommend people to take part in next year.

Paul Despabiladeras 保罗, Year 9

 

你好，this week we have been learning about 中秋节, the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival. In our lesson on monday, we explored the ancient legend of 后羿 (Huo Yi) and his wife the chinese goddess of the moon 嫦娥 (Chang’e), discovering one of the reasons how the moon festival gets its name and its traditions that continues today, as many people leave annual offerings to Chang’e during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Additionally, we made our own 月饼 (moon cakes). We learned that mooncakes were used by the Ming revolutionaries in their effort to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China at the end of the Yuan dynasty. This prompted the quick distribution of mooncakes. The mooncakes contained a secret message: on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month (the day of the mid- autumn festival), kill the rulers. We understand that today 月饼 symbolise reunion and togetherness. A notable part of celebrating the holiday is the carrying of brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, or floating sky lanterns - symbolic beacons that light people's path to prosperity and good fortune. I think it is important to learn about other cultural holidays in order to avoid being ignorant or insensitive to other cultures. Chinese culture is beautiful, especially the eloquence of the Moon festival. 

Michael Ato 迈克, Year 10

 

你好, today was the Autumn Festival cultural lesson (for Year 10). We learnt about the festival’s origin, the legends and the foods that people eat. As well as learning what people eat during the festival, we also had the opportunity to make our own “mooncakes”, using cupcakes and a mould provided by Mrs Lu. It was a great experience as we learnt about the process of making mooncakes. My favourite part of the lesson was making the mooncakes (obviously!), but also learning about the 3 main legends associated with the festival, those being the “Lady Chang’e Flying to the Moon”, the “Jade Rabbit Mashing Herbs” and “Wu Gang Cutting Sweet Osmanthus”. My favourite was the story of “Lady Chang’e Flying to the Moon” because it was very inspirational and how she sacrificed her life by consuming the elixir of immortality rather than giving it to Feng Meng, the greedy student of HouYi.

Alex Wong 健文, Year 10

 

你好, today we learnt about and celebrated a traditional Chinese event called the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as Moon festival. This year, it is on September 21st, and we learnt about what food they eat, how they celebrate it and what traditions they have. Drinking wine with fermented osmanthus flowers, eating pumpkins, mooncakes, to worship the moon, and taro, to bring good luck, are some of the many foods which people eat during the festival. Celebrations and traditions include: family gatherings, admiring the moon, lighting lanterns and much more. My favourite part of our lesson was experiencing the interesting traditions and making mooncakes using a cupcake and a mould.

Elizaveta Newton 丽莎, Year 10    

                                                                                                               

你好，having celebrated this festival since Year 8, I have still learnt a lot and have definitely refreshed my interest in learning the language as they are both interlinked. As a result, I would definitely recommend this to my friends as the activities such as making and eating the mooncakes were quite interesting.

Shakeel Majeed 基尔, Year 11

 

你好! today we learnt about the Mid-Autumn Festival that is widely celebrated in China this year, it was celebrated on the 21^st September. I liked learning about the legends that the festival is based on, and I think the concept of coming together to celebrate the festival is extremely important, especially after Covid 19. We made mooncakes (a commonly eaten food among Chinese people during this festival) out of cupcakes as well as trying genuine mooncakes which was a great experience as it was intriguing to taste food from other cultures. We watched videos that taught us these legends and another on why different types of food are eaten and the importance of them. I think it was a great experience and helped us to learn more about Chinese culture.

Scarlett Barber 思佳, Year 11

 

 Not only do we admire the bright moon and eat mooncakes, we also light sky lanterns. The purpose of this is to write your wishes and send them to the sky so that they might come true. On the other hand, the Mid-Autumn festival is the first festival that we have celebrated this new academic year and conveniently lines up with our international week.  In order to further develop Chinese learning in KS5, which is part of the IB curriculum cultural links, we start to build the cultural knowledge and understanding across KS3,4 and 5 through different activities to inspire pupils to delve deeper into Chinese culture.

Click here to view the Chinese Mid-Autumn photo album 2021.

Mrs Lu
Chinese Teacher, MFL Department