The new purpose-built language block has now been officially opened at the Thomas, Lord Audley School and Language College.

As part of the school's plans to become the hotbed of languages in the town, teachers are gearing up to offer languages rarely studied in state schools.

Headteacher Steven Davidson said Japanese was now almost a certainty as the school could get a teacher for the subject.

He added: "We are now beginning to explore the opportunity of introducing Arabic and Chinese as well."

He said one of the reasons Arabic was being considered was because of current global events in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US.

Mr Davidson said: "Given the context of world relations, it is really important for people to get an understanding of other languages and cultures."

Val Pratt, director of the language college, said: "The extra funding which we have received from the Government as a result of our successful bid to obtain language college status has enabled us to enhance all aspects of our students' language-learning curriculum.

"Students make regular use of our new multi-media IT facilities during lessons and at lunchtime and after school clubs. They now have the opportunity to study four European languages and we plan to introduce more exotic languages Japanese, Arabic and Chinese next year.

"Our staff have begun teaching French and German in our feeder primary schools and we will be opening our premises in the new year to offer language and IT classes to adults in the local community."

The new two-storey language block, which has a 17-computer language lab and cost more than £200,000, was officially opened by Colchester MP Bob Russell

Published Monday December 17, 2001