Jo McGowan, Market Strategist, Asset Languages

The Guru Nanak Sikh Primary VA School in Hillingdon, Middlesex, understands the importance of assessing and rewarding pupils with community languages skills. Britain’s only state-funded Sikh primary school teaches Panjabi to its 300 pupils and is now using OCR’s new assessment scheme, Asset Languages.

Panjabi is the first language for many students who attend the Guru Nanak Sikh Primary and its local secondary schools. Yet, while the secondary school offers pupils the opportunity to gain recognition of their abilities at GCSE and A level there had been no way of accrediting its primary students until the introduction of Asset Languages.

Gurvinder Gobindpuri, Head of Panjabi and Sikh Studies at Guru Nanak Sikh Secondary School, is the Asset Languages centre coordinator for both schools. Gurvinder was instrumental in introducing the qualification and is currently assessing 61 Panjabi students, aged 9 to 11, in Breakthrough Reading.

Gurvinder said: ‘It has long been a frustration of mine that although we have Panjabi on the curriculum at the primary school, we have not been able to formally acknowledge the achievements of our students. Asset Languages offers us a perfect solution; it is structured for learners from primary level and beyond, which means that we can provide everyone with an opportunity to achieve a nationally recognised qualification.’

Asset Languages is the assessment scheme for the Languages Ladder. The framework takes a step-by-step approach to language learning, providing credit for separate language skills from beginner level through to fluency and is suitable for learners of all ages.

Gurvinder continues: ‘The staged assessment of Asset is fantastic as it means that we can benchmark our pupils’ ability as they make the move from primary to secondary school. Being able to award certificates at each stage is a huge plus point, as even if pupils do not want to continue their Panjabi studies at GCSE, they can still walk away with a qualification.

‘The bite-size learning is also popular as it gives our pupils short-term goals to work towards, which is tremendously motivating.’

Another key benefit of Asset Languages is its flexibility. It is a proficiency scheme, not a particular programme of study, and has been designed to work alongside existing classroom teaching. Gurvinder explains:

‘I was wary of anything that would disrupt our current teaching practices. However, we have found the scheme very easy to integrate and there has been no need to change the resources that we were already using. Plus, being able to adapt some of the tasks to fit with topics we were covering in class, has made it even easier to incorporate.’

Gurvinder is so impressed with Asset that she is introducing it for French at the start of the autumn term. She concludes: ‘Having an assessment scheme in place for Panjabi has helped us to get the students to take their language achievements much more seriously and has changed the way that it is perceived, both in school and at home. Our students are really enjoying the experience and this is helping us to encourage them to try other languages. We’re looking forward to continuing with Asset next year.’

Barrie Hunt, Programme Director for Asset Languages, said: ‘Guru Nanak is a school that is committed to promoting community languages and works hard to help pupils develop a sense of pride in their language skills. We are thrilled that Asset has provided them with a way of formally recognising the achievements of students.’

Asset Languages is available in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu and Yoruba.