GCSE Panjabi

Introduction

Almost all students who started Panjabi in Year 7 continue the language up to GCSE level, and will have 5 lessons per fortnight.

Panjabi is tiered, so students will either be entered for Foundation tier (grades 1-5) or Higher tier (grades 4-9). Decisions will always be made carefully, using assessment evidence and with the intention of securing the best grade for each individual student.

In Key Stage 4 Panjabi students further develop their reading, listening, writing and speaking skills in the language, in order to be able to describe their world and the world around them in greater depth, and to express their opinions and develop them with reasons and additional information. In addition, students develop their understanding of cultural aspects of the Panjabi-speaking world.

We also have the opportunity for students who can speak, read and write another language to sit a GCSE in that language – what we call ‘home languages’. This is a great opportunity for students to gain an additional GCSE qualification, and students achieve strong results.

Equipment

Sentence builder booklet – these are stapled into the back of students’ exercise books and provide reference material for all the topics covered throughout the year.

Speaking booklet – these will be kept at school mostly, but students will be expected to learn their answers in order to effectively prepare themselves for the speaking and writing exams.

Homework

Homework is regularly set by teachers, usually once per week. This may consist of vocabulary learning or quizzing, exam-style tasks, and revision or ‘throwback’ activities. As language learning is best done little and often, students are therefore encouraged, particularly with vocabulary learning, to break up the total amount of time spent on homework into more, shorter chunks, to maximise their retention.

Learning outside of the classroom