It’s back! Get ready to solve the latest GCHQ puzzles and brainteasers, as the Christmas Challenge returns on Wednesday 10 December!
Photo by Eyestetix Studio on Unsplash
The Christmas Challenge is designed by GCHQ’s own codebreakers to give your brain a festive workout. Packed with fiendish puzzles and brainteasers, the Challenge inspires school students aged 11-18 to think creatively, work together, and discover the skills they might need to become a spy.
The puzzles aren’t meant to be solved alone – students will need to work together, each bringing their unique perspective to the challenge. At GCHQ, we believe the right mix of minds means we can solve seemingly impossible problems.
Oxford’s first multilingual, digital student magazine
On the blog this week, current finalist Amélie tells us all about The Oxford Linguist – a very special student-led publication that showcases students’ creative writing and demonstrates the kinds of unique experiences that students can have whilst studying at Oxford/university.
Trinity (Summer) Term 2024 saw the launch of The Oxford Linguist, Oxford University’s first multilingual, digital student magazine. Dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the talent of foreign language speakers and learners across the University, it offers the unique opportunity for students to submit their work in any language — no translation required. In just four issues, the magazine has published more than 70 contributions in over 15 languages, ranging from French, Spanish, and German to Singlish, Welsh, and even Esperanto!
The Oxford Linguist was conceived with the aim of fostering a University-wide exchange among language enthusiasts. When I looked to publish my own French writing, I found that existing student magazines often, understandably, requested an English translation (a task ill-suited to poetry!). Therefore, myself and a group of fellow Modern Languages students got together in the Taylorian Common Room to sketch out an initial concept for a multilingual magazine. Then, thanks to a few posters, a dedicated website, and support from a couple of tutors, we assembled a team of 15 editors, and, a few weeks later, released our inaugural 80-page edition in June 2024.
Just over a year on, the editorial team has grown to around thirty members, now including dedicated Creative and Communications teams. The magazine has built a social media following of more than 800 and each issue attracts over 500 reads on average. We have also expanded into in-person events: last year students enjoyed a Multilingual Translation Workshop, a Multilingual Poetry Night, and, in February, a Valentine’s Day workshop exploring linguistic conceptualisations of love across cultures.
The Oxford Linguist’s reception has been overwhelmingly positive in its first year, revealing students’ remarkable enthusiasm for language learning and exploration of foreign culture. With the uptake of undergraduate Languages studies steadily on the decline, and courses now being scrapped altogether in some major universities, showing that young people’s passion for languages is ‘alive and kicking’ has never been more important.
We believe that interests such as these often arise before university, which is why the magazine is looking to engage younger students by opening up submissions to Sixth Formers. As of September 2025, we will be working with the Modern Languages Schools Liaison to incorporate The Oxford Linguist into the department’s Outreach efforts. The work of young linguists – including prize winners from previous Outreach competition initiatives, as well as independent submissions – will be published alongside contributions from current Oxford students. We hope this will be an exciting opportunity for young students to indulge in their passion for languages outside of their curriculum, and engage with the University’s community of linguists, too!
To find out more about The Oxford Linguist, please consult our website. For those interested in finding out more or getting involved, please contact us at: hello.theoxfordlinguist@gmail.com.
This week’s blog post was written by third year French & Philosophy student, Laurence, who talks us through the process of preparing for the Modern Languages year abroad…
As I prepare for my year abroad, it is worth reflecting on some of the challenges (and opportunities) I have faced along the way. I set off for Brussels, Belgium in September for a communications and advocacy internship at an environmental NGO. Here I’ll detail some of the key steps I’ve had to take to make sure I’m year abroad ready. Of course, these will vary quite a bit from person-to-person, but I hope reading about my experience will be useful for those who would like a little bit more detail on what the year abroad could entail. I certainly wish I’d had this blog when I was in sixth form!
Sunset at Mont des Arts – Brussels, Belgium | Photo by Najib Samatar on Unsplash
1. Find an activity
Many people choose to study on their year abroad (as I myself will do in a semester in Lyon from after Christmas). This is a fairly intuitive choice, insofar as we’re all students already and campus life offers a ready-made environment to make new friends and discover a new culture. Another popular option is to become a British Council language assistant in a school, and a third is to find an internship with a company based in a country that speaks your target language. It was the latter option that I decided to take for the first few months of my travels.
Finding an internship is not easy and takes diligent research, often outside of traditional avenues. Don’t wait for something to fall into your lap: a careers advisor told me to message fourth year Oxford linguists on social media to ask about how they found their work experience. They were all more than happy to help me out by telling me about their own experiences, and it was through this method that I found my work placement in Belgium.
2. Find somewhere to live
A scary but exciting prospect! Brussels has a competitive housing market, so I had to get creative. Facebook groups are used by landlords and groups of friends to look for house shares (“colocations” in French, or “colocs” for short). I had several video tours of different properties and was eventually able to seal the deal in a house of 7 with other interns from Belgium, France, and Germany. In this search, my French was incredibly useful in communicating about potential rentals: I’ve certainly developed my housing-related vocabulary! There are English-speaking house shares as well, but they are generally harder to find. Being a French speaker despite being British definitely helped me stand out from the crowd as it impressed a fair few people.
3. Visas…
This really will vary from person to person depending on whether you have British citizenship, are an EU citizen, or hail from elsewhere. What is key is to get in the know about what documents you will need for your stay as soon as possible. In the case of Belgium and France, visa services are currently subcontracted to a third party company which manages every stage of the application. They can be a bit slow to reply, but you can contact them by email with specific questions. Don’t leave this till the last minute! If you are doing an internship, you may also need a work permit. It’s best to make your nationality clear to your employer quite early on, so that they can help you get together all the required documents.
While the year abroad will feel a long way away at present, it can be interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the more logistical elements, as well as the dreamy travel snaps and new lingo learned. As you can probably tell, the year abroad will undoubtedly make you a better planner, a more fluent communicator, and if you play your cards right, a more employable future graduate!
A blog for students and teachers of Years 11 to 13, and anyone else with an interest in Modern Foreign Languages and Cultures, written by the staff and students of Oxford University. Updated every Wednesday!
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