The European Section, in line with the school’s goals and philosophy, has developed pathways to support mother tongue languages within the school day.  Throughout the middle and high school, students are able to study their mother tongue language either as a school supported programme or as a directed class. 

In addition to our core languages, English and German which are taught at a variety of levels from beginner to native speaker, students are able to attend specialist mother tongue Dutch or Danish classes taught by native speakers.   As the school develops, we will begin to offer additional mother tongue language classes as part of the regular school programme.   In this way we will continue to support this vital component of each child’s cultural development whilst furthermore facilitating better integration into national school or university systems should the student have to return home.

For other mother tongue languages, GESS offers its Mother Tongue Support Programme that is directed by the school’s two language coordinators in conjunction with external tutors.  In this way students can follow almost any additional language at mother tongue level right up to and including the IB Diploma.  As such, in 2009-10 we are also supporting Korean, Bahasa, Spanish and French at native speaker level.

For more information click on the Dutch or Danish or Mother Tongue Support Programmes.