20 Mar
Eleven Year 10 pupils took part in a competition organised by GCHQ and Business Language Solutions held at King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls on 19th March. The activities involved a talk about the work behind the scenes of GCHQ as well as the importance of modern foreign languages for the intelligence services in their fight against international crime.
There was also an introduction to encryption and a taster session of Arabic, Korean and Mandarin. The rest of the day involved solving tasks based on a scenario to intercept a drug smuggling ring from Colombia, using their newly acquired skills. Holy Trinity students had to solve codes, spot numbers in Mandarin as well as having to read and listen to secret messages in French in order to get the required information.
At the end our Year 10 students had to present their findings in French to the intelligence services staff.
The staff at Holy Trinity are immensely proud of our students and their hard work during the day! Well done Year 10. You all are amazing linguists!
