Schools Minister Nick Gibb praises Dallam School's language teaching collaboration with University of Cumbria (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Schools Minister Nick Gibb praises Dallam School's language teaching collaboration with University of Cumbria

2:07pm Monday 6th February 2012 in News By Gazette newsdesk

SCHOOLS Minister Nick Gibb has described a new language teaching partnership between Dallam School, Milnthorpe, and the University of Cumbria as 'potentially inspirational'.

Mr Gibb said the project, which involves future language teachers being trained at Dallam, could influence similar projects at a national level.

The minister, who offcially opened the new unit on Monday, said: “Languages are so important, but over the last 10 years we have seen a dramatic drop in students taking them. As a country, we can’t allow this situation to carry on.

“That’s why I welcome this very good initiative involving a school which does extremely well in language teaching.”

The specialist language school’s collaboration with the university is described as a ‘revolutionary’ way of training modern teachers. From September, modern language teaching students will be based at rather than being taught in the university’s Lancaster campus. The aim is to further improve language teaching at Dallam while also providing newly trained languages teachers with a better understanding of working in a school.