Category Archives: French

FRENCH FLASH FICTION 2022: The Highly Commended Entries (Y7-11, Part 2)

Following the publication of the winning and runner up entries, we are excited to present the second and final set of highly commended entries for the Year 7-11 category of this year’s French Flash Fiction competition!

A huge well done to all our highly commended entrants! Without further ado, allez, on y va!

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash

Là où la tornade avait balayé les routes, une destruction que le monde ne savait pas qu’elle pouvait posséder, dévastant une terre de lumière, de vie ou d’ennemis, la laissant aspirer à des voix et au bruit des pieds, à part les yeux pleurant pour apercevoir les corps, les oiseaux chantaient un chant lugubre, les fleurs s’agenouillaient puis s’inclinaient, les branches mortes des arbres suivaient le vent, traçant un chemin pour que les feuilles volent et déchaînent leurs ailes, parmi les pétales blancs laiteux tourbillonnant dans le ciel, c’est là que j’ai trouvé la lettre de la fille perdue.

Chaitanya Sapra, Year 10

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Une fois, il y avait quelque chose sur lequel tout le monde se concentrait toujours. Cet objet était rond et fatigué des gens qui le regardaient toujours. Cet article s’ennuyait toujours et ne pouvait que continuer à bouger, d’où la raison pour laquelle il était si fatigué. Il voulait prendre le relais mais ne pouvait pas. C’était coincé. Sur un mur. Ce gadget n’aimait pas être une horloge. Il voulait avoir la liberté comme les fleurs ou les pissenlits. L’horloge a cessé de bouger et s’est rendu compte à quel point elle s’ennuyait encore plus, alors elle était heureuse d’être une horloge et a continué à tourner.

Heba Shahzad, Year 8

Un village ukrainien

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Les champs, où elle a passé plusieurs journées ensoleillées à jouer sont criblés de balles. Des missiles meurtriers se cachent parmi l’herbe, et attendent leur victime. Le souffle des explosions met le village en ruines. Au loin, elle peut, à peine, distinguer les soldats qui se précipitent vers les maisons. Le ciel nocturne est aussi clair qu’en plein jour, illuminé par les flammes.

En fermant les yeux, elle imagine un monde pacifique, un monde qu’elle est sûre elle reverra; les tanks sont capables de détruire son foyer, mais pas son espoir.


Anna Skrypina, Year 10

Le Diable de Park Lane

Photo by Kathy Marsh on Unsplash

En jugeant la forme maigre du garçon d’en haut, j’ai arboré ma meilleure expression de supériorité alors qu’il cherchait frénétiquementdans sa poche pour trouver l’argent qu’il me devait. Mon propre frère; en faillite, sans domicile. Il était la quintessence de pitoyable.

‘100 dollars de plus’, j’ai dit de façon moqueuse, son visage se contorsionnait avec un soupir de réticence douloureuse alors qu’il me remettait tout l’argent qui lui restait.

Mes yeux brillants de dollars, j’ai savouré le goût délicieux de la dominance. Peut-être suis-je impitoyable. Mais, qui a besoin de gentillesse quand vous êtes le gagnant du Monopoly?


Gabriella Sweeney, Year 11

Le Président

Photo by Margaret Jaszowska on Unsplash

C’était minuit, quand tout le monde dormait. Les gnomes se sont empilés l’un sur l’autre pour grimper au réfrigérateur… ils cherchaient le Président. 

Ils se sont balancés les uns sur les chapeaux pointus des autres, et le réfrigérateur à ouvert, dévoilant leur prix. Mais à ce moment, ils sont tombés.

Je me suis réveillée d’un coup, mon cœur battant rapidement. Un rêve, je me disais, mais j’ai décidé de descendre voir pour en être sûre.

En entrant dans la cuisine j’ai vu des morceaux de porcelaine colorée, éparpillés par terre près du réfrigérateur… et un camembert rond en plein milieu.

Lulu Wills, Year 11

Félicitations tout le monde!

FRENCH FLASH FICTION 2022: The Highly Commended Entries (Y7-11, Part 1)

Following the publication of the winning and runner up entries, we are excited to present the first set of highly commended entries for the Year 7-11 category of this year’s French Flash Fiction competition!

A huge well done to all our highly commended entrants! Without further ado, allez, on y va!

Le renard

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Elle se faufile dans les rues, attentive aux signes de vie humaine. Les humains ne l’aiment pas. Elle doit être silencieuse, rapide et gracieuse. Tout mouvement brusque et ils crieront. Les humains sont si faciles à effrayer.

Certains jours, elle s’amuse à les effrayer, lorsqu’elle trottine dans leurs jardins; seulement un flou orange vif qu’ils ne peuvent pas identifier.

Mais pas aujourd’hui.
Aujourd’hui, elle a un travail important.
Ses petits l’attendent; tous pleins d’espoir que sa mission réussira.
Silence.
Un bruissement.
Pattes trotteuses.
Claque!
Le bac s’est renversé.
Aujourd’hui
Elle a réussi.


Sara Bjelanovic, Year 9

Mon Jeu Avec un Fantôme

Photo by Shannon Potter on Unsplash

Après l’école, avec rien à faire, j’aventurais au grenier. Quand mes grands-parents est morts, touts leurs bagages auraient reçu à ma mère qui les a déchargait ici. Dans le coin, un vieux et oublié échiquier. Je
déplacais une pièce d’échecs avant que ma mère me le dit que le déjeuner serait prêt.


Le jour prochaine avant l’école, je décidais retourner au grenier à
l’échiquier. Étrangement, une pièce adverse s’était déplacée. Je fais
mon prochain pas, puis je ferme la porte du grenier, la verrouille et
cache la clé. Je ne veux pas que quelqu’un perturbe mon jeu avec un
fantôme.

Steph Harper, Year 10

Moonlight Sonata: ‘Adagio Sostenuto’ – Ludwig van Beethoven

Photo by Geert Pieters on Unsplash


Je repose doucement mes mains sur les touches.

Des teintes pâles de cobalt et de saphir jaillissent du bout de mes doigts potelés, engloutissant l’ivoire dans une étreinte nocturne veloutée. Derrière des nuages plombés, la lune apparaît et des rayons laiteux ectoplasmiques courent dans mes veines. J’étire mes doigts, les muscles se préparent à l’impact alors que je m’écrase sur les touches, expulsant la nuit obliquement à travers l’atmosphère noircie assoupie.

Do# mineur.

Puis, silence…

Le regard de ma professeure se baisse, mais je sais que ses yeux sont remplis de constellations étincelantes.

Je tourne la page. 2eme mouvement.

Khalen Kumarapperuma Arachchige, Year 11

Photo by Geert Pieters on Unsplash

Le brasier embrassait tout ce qui l’entourait, le feu me crachait dessus alors que je courais à travers la forêt cendrée, les arbres marqués de braises s’effondraient autour de moi ; le ciel était rouge orangé et jaune, embué de fumée, les flammes léchaient ma peau. J’ai souhaité être englouti, mettant fin à ma douleur, à ma culpabilité d’avoir causé ce désordre, je savais que le feu de camp n’était pas sûr après la sécheresse de l’été, je savais que j’étais imprudent mais il était trop tard pour des excuses maintenant, j’avais brûlé la forêt, l’endroit sur lequel beaucoup comptaient pour leur survie, je pouvais entendre un hélicoptère au-dessus qui filmait mon erreur, une terrible erreur.

Archie Lewis, Year 9

Ma toute première leçon de français en confinement

Photo by Maya Maceka on Unsplash

Il était 13h30 et c’était l’heure de mon premier cours de français en confinement. Je ne savais pas à quoi m’attendre. J’avais du mal à allumer le microphone. Ensuite, mes sœurs m’ont aidée et nous nous disputions toutes sur la façon de le faire. Le bruit était si fort que tout le monde dans la classe pouvait l’entendre, même le professeur! “Euh, qui parle?” demanda le professeur. “Désolée, c’est moi. J’essaie de réparer le microphone”, j’ai dit. J’étais tellement gênée! Maintenant je sais comment fonctionne le microphone. Que la leçon commence!

Saba Sabir, Year 10

Félicitations tout le monde!

FRENCH FLASH FICTION 2022: The Winners

We’re delighted to publish the winning and runner-up entries for this year’s French Flash Fiction competition. We’ll be publishing the winning entries for Spanish, as well as the highly commended entries for both languages over the coming weeks.

Thank you and well done to everyone who entered. On behalf of the French judging panel, Dr Emily McLaughlin commented the following about all the entries we received this year:

We have really enjoyed reading the entries for our 2022 Flash Fiction competition. Thank you to everyone who entered and well done for producing such creative and inspiring texts in a foreign language. 

We have been incredibly impressed by what you’ve been able to do with 100 words. In very quick succession, we found ourselves being frightened, amused, touched, and intrigued. There were anecdotes from your everyday lives, flights of fancy transporting us to other worlds, and reflections on serious events going on in the world at large. We read about French class, school friends, dreams, fears, love, lockdown, sport, divorce, old age, immigration, and war. But we also met fridge-raiding gnomes, chess-playing ghosts, talking chickens, and dancing cows. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun reading them all. 

Without further ado, here are the stories! We hope you enjoy reading them as much as the judges did.

YEARS 7-11

WINNER :

Photo by Jannet Serhan on Unsplash

L’horloge lentement….tick….tick…..tick… sur le mur.

Mon temps est compté. Coronavirus se propage dans mon corps comme les racines d’un rosier. Tick…tick…tick.. les fleurs éclatent à travers les fissures de l’horloge, déchirant les mains du temps. Les roses grandissent hors des planchers et se cramponnent à mon corps. Les épines mordent dans ma peau me déchirant violemment. Et les vignes s’enroulent  autour moi et asphyxient mes poumons. Et pourtant, je suis tout seul. Personne n’est là pour s’occuper de moi, sur mon lit de mort. Enfin, je me niche dans les pétales des fleurs. Leur odeur douce maladive me surmonte.

Mahdiya Gul, Year 10

RUNNER UP:

Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash

La Pêche Perdue

Toto se rendait à l’école un matin, plein de joie de vivre ! ll était ravi de revoir ses amis après le week-end.  Quand il arriva, son professeur dit « Bon Dieu Toto ! Vous avez la pêche ! » Toto, confus, s’assit à son bureau.  À la récréation, il chercha la pêche. Ayant sans succès vérifié son sac, son manteau, ses poches et sa trousse, Toto commençait à s’inquiéter.  Finalement, il se tourna vers l’un de ses amis et lui dit « Luc ! Je crois que j’ai perdu la pêche !  » Luc lui a donné la sienne.

Elsa Rea, Year 9

YEARS 12-13

WINNER :

Photo by Damir Kopezhanov on Unsplash

2075

Jack a juré comme des étincelles brûlaient ses mains, illuminant le garage. “C’est 2075 pourquoi ne peut-il pas le Tesla se réparer, le …” avant d’être coupé par plus d’étincelles.

Il a regardé l’ordinateur. Pourquoi la voiture ne se réparerait-elle pas toute seule? La technologie d’auto réparation a existé depuis 10 ans et les ingénieurs avaient perdu des affaires depuis. “J’ai besoin de cet argent pour payer mon loyer. Pour l’amour de Dieu, s’il vous plaît, réparez-vous cette fois!”

“Bien sûr,” dit l’ordinateur.

“Bien sûr,” il avait oublié le mot magique. Il avait oublié de dire s’il vous plaît.

Devon Chandler, Year 12

RUNNER UP:

Photo by Rachel Cook on Unsplash

Vagues de souvenir

La lettre que mon papi m’a donnée m’a conduite ici, où les vagues atteignent leurs destinations avec des éclaboussements assourdissants, et où les vibrations du sable me chuchotent ses secrets.

Le vent frais fera apparaître le rose sur mes joues et l’odeur du sel me revigorera. Au lointain, j’entendrai des voix de joie contagieuse et je verrai un enfant ébloui par la texture du sable mouillé. C’est ici que mon papi restera éternellement, à côté de cette immense masse bleue. Je lui souhaiterai un bon voyage, en plaçant ses cendres doucement dans la mer où tout a commencé.

Maia Forbes, Year 12

Félicitations à tous nos gagnants!

Flash Fiction results 2022

In December 2021, we launched our annual Flash Fiction competitions, which closed at the end of March. The competition was open to students in Years 7 to 13, who were tasked with writing a short story of no more than 100 words in French and/or Spanish.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

We had an incredible response, with entries coming in from the UK and beyond! In total, we received over 1350 submissions across the two languages!

The judges were very impressed with the quality of the entries. We would like to thank everyone who entered the competition and commend you all for your hard work and creativity in writing a piece of fiction in a different language. This is a challenging exercise, and a significant achievement – congratulations all!

We are delighted to be able to announce the winners, runners up and highly commended entries in this week’s blog post.

French

In the Years 7-11 category, the winner is Mahdiya Gul in Year 10. The runner-up is Elsa Rea in Year 9.

The judges also highly commended Sara Bjelanovic, Steph Harper, Khalen Kumarapperuma Arachchige, Archie Lewis, Saba Sabir, Chaitanya Sapra, Heba Shahzad, Anna Skrypina, Gabriella Sweeney, and Lulu Wills.

In the Years 12-13 category, the winner is Devon Chandler in Year 12. The runner-up is Maia Forbes in Year 12.

The judges also highly commended Rose Bourdier, Ellen Burton, Jasmine Channa, Charlie Cross, Sascha Entwistle, Lucy Fan, Carmen Gessell, Thomas Hilditch, Betina Tello Peirce and Harriet Tyler.

Spanish

In the Years 7-11 category, the winner is Leila Zak in Year 11. The runner up is Raffaella O’Callaghan in Year 10.

The judges also highly commended Sofia Smith, Isabella Rickard, Roxy Cole, Poppy Rhodes, Reema Hindocha, Julia Chermanowicz, Lilia Perry, Ayesha Nusrath, Caitlin McGowan, Pragvansh Bhatt.  

In the Years 12-13 category, the winner is Emilia Roy in Year 12. The runner up is Karolin Rendelmann in Year 12.

The judges also highly commended Adam Noad, Nicole Puhr, Toni Agbede, Polly O’Sullivan, Daria Pershina, Aarav Ganguli, Marina Michelli-Marsden, Libby Rock, Anna Couzens, Matilda Lawson.

Félicitations! / ¡Felicidades! If anyone is curious to read the winning stories, we will be publishing them in the coming weeks.

Congratulations to our winners, once again!

Modern Languages Summer School

Calling all Year 12 French, German and Spanish students from UK state schools – an exciting opportunity awaits!

Wadham College are running their annual Modern Languages Summer School in Oxford from Monday 15th August to Friday 19th August 2022. This is a wonderful opportunity for Year 12 students who are interested in pursuing a degree in Languages to get a feel for life at university and at Oxford more specifically.

Throughout the week, pupils will take part in an academic programme, live in College, meet student ambassadors studying at Oxford, and receive information, advice and guidance on applying to university. 

This Summer School is completely free and Wadham will provide financial support to pupils to cover any travel costs.

Students on Wadham’s Modern Languages Summer School, taken from Wadham College’s website

In terms of the academic programme, pupils will engage in a seminar series led by Wadham’s language tutors, including language classes in their selected language of study (French, German or Spanish) with opportunities to try other languages as beginners (including German, Portuguese and Russian).  They will also complete an assignment on a main topic with feedback from tutors.  Pupils will also be able to receive support from current undergraduates and from the College on making successful applications to top universities.

Students talking to a Wadham Student Ambassador, taken from Wadham College’s website

Wadham are delighted to be able to run this Summer School event in-person, allowing participants the best experience of life at the university. The feedback from last year’s Summer Schools was hugely positive with a third of participants subsequently securing offers to study at the university.

You can find out more information and the application form here. Applications are currently open and the deadline to submit is Friday 3rd June at 5pm.

Don’t miss out on the chance to be an Oxford student for a week!

Un sac de billes: What is ‘une musette’?

by Simon Kemp

Un sac de billes, by Joseph Joffo

This is a post about the memoir Un sac de billes by Joseph Joffo, which you may encounter on the French A-level course.

A single marble that looks like a miniature Planet Earth…

a star-shaped piece of yellow cloth with the word ‘Juif’ written across it in stark black letters…

a canvas bag full of marbles with a shoelace as a drawstring…

…some of the objects we come across in the opening pages of Joseph Joffo’s Un Sac de billes take on outsized meaning for us as readers and for the two young protagonists who are about to go on the run from Nazi persecution in Occupied Paris. Among these objects are the musettes, the cloth bags in which the boys’ mother packs changes of clothes, soap and toothbrush and folded-up handkerchiefs on the evening that they are sent away from home:

Sur une chaise paillée, près de la porte, il y avait nos deux musettes, bien gonflées, avec du linge dedans, nos affaires de toilette, des mouchoirs pliés. (p. 35)

And out of all the things we see at the start of the story, it is the musette that returns to focus at the end. Joseph notes on his return to Paris:

J’ai toujours ma musette, je la porte avec plus de facilité qu’autrefois, j’ai grandi. (p. 228)

And the final image before the epilogue is of his reflection in the window of the family barber’s shop, full circle to the home he left years before:

Je me vois dans la vitrine avec ma musette.

C’est vrai, j’ai grandi. (p. 229)

A musette  is a cloth bag with a shoulder strap, sometimes translated as satchel or haversack. It’s often associated with ordinary soldiers in the two World Wars, so kit-bag is another possible English rendering. Plus, if you fill it with oats and put the strap over a horse’s ears rather than over your shoulder, it can also be the French word for a nose-bag.

If it seems an odd word for a bag, that’s because it’s actually related to cornemuse, the French word for bagpipes, and musette can actually still mean a variety of French mini-bagpipes, as well as the sort of traditional French country music you might hear played on them – although these days you’d be more likely to hear it on an accordion. Even more oddly, the muse part of the words musette and cornemuse doesn’t seem to be related to musique/music at all: rather, it comes from museau/muzzle to refer to the face you have to make as you puff out your cheeks to inflate the bag while you play the pipes.

In the novel, the epilogue shows us why the musette is the thing Joffo has chosen to tie the start of the story to the end of it. Partly, it’s to show the literal circularity of Jo’s and Maurice’s journey, drawing our attention to the things that are the same (a boy with a bag standing in front of a barber shop window), and the things that are not (the child is now a young man, his father is no longer on the other side of the window). But as the epilogue makes clear, it’s also about another kind of circularity: the cycle of history repeating itself, generation after generation. The adult Joffo imagines what it would be like having to say the same thing to his own son as his father once said to him:

J’imagine que ce soir, à l’heure où il va pénétrer dans sa chambre, à côté de la mienne, je sois obligé de lui dire : « Mon petit gars, prends ta musette, voilà 50 000 francs (anciens) et tu vas partir. » Cela m’est arrivé, cela est arrivé a mon père et une joie sans bornes m’envahit en songeant que cela ne lui arrive pas. (p. 230)

But this ‘boundless joy’ is not the emotion on which the novel closes a few lines later. Rather, it’s on a note of foreboding that we end with an image of the musettes stored away in the attic, just in case:

Les musettes sont au grenier, elles y resteront toujours.

Peut-être… (p. 231)

When Joffo’s father was forced to flee, we learned back at the start of the book, it was the violence of the anti-Jewish pogroms that forced him and his family from their home. That home was ‘un grand village au sud d’Odessa, Elysabethgrad en Bessarabie russe’.* The region of Bessarabie is part of modern-day Ukraine. As people once again flee from Odessa and the surrounding area in fear for their lives, while at the same time not one but two far-right candidates are prominent in this year’s French presidential election, Joffo’s work has never felt more timely than it does today.

* Joffo’s Elysabethgrad may or may not be today’s Kropyvnytskyi, which was called Elizabethgrad before 1924 and was the site of severe anti-Jewish violence during pogroms incited by the Russian Tsar in the early twentieth century. Kropyvnytskyi is a city rather than a village, however, and north of Odessa, so there may have been some confusions as the family tale was passed down the generations.

Last Chance to Enter our Flash Fiction Competitions!

With just over one week to go until the deadline, there’s still a chance to enter our Flash Fiction Competitions in French and/or Spanish – don’t miss out on your chance to win £100! A reminder of the competition details and how you can enter can be found below…

What is Flash Fiction?

We’re looking for a complete story, written in French or Spanish, using NO MORE THAN 100 WORDS.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

What are the judges looking for?

We’ll be looking for imagination and narrative flair, as well as your ability to write in French or Spanish. Your use of French or Spanish will be considered in the context of your age and year group: in other words, we will not expect younger pupils to compete against older pupils linguistically. For inspiration, you can read last year’s winning entries for French here, and for Spanish here.

What do I win?

There are two categories: Years 7-11 and Years 12-13. A first prize of £100 will be awarded to the winning entry in each category, with runner-up prizes of £25. The winning entries will be published on this blog, if you give us permission to do so.

How do I enter?

The deadline for submissions is noon on Thursday 31st March 2022. If you would like to submit a story in French, please do so via our online submission portal here. If you would like to submit a story in Spanish, please do so here.

You may only submit one story per language but you are welcome to submit one story in French AND one story in Spanish if you would like to. Your submission should be uploaded as a Word document or PDF.

Please note that, because of GDPR, teachers cannot enter on their students’ behalf: students must submit their entries themselves.

If you have any questions, please email us at schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.

Bonne chance à tous! ¡Buena suerte a todos!

THE UNIQ EXPERIENCE

by Simon Kemp, Associate Professor of French and Co-Director of Outreach

What are your plans for July this year? Might you have four days to spare, say from July 10-13 or July 17-20? Might you consider spending them with us in Oxford, getting a taste of our modern language courses in the daytime and a feel for what student life is like in an Oxford college in the evenings?

Once the exams are over and the students have gone home for the summer, for many of us Oxford academics the next thing on the horizon is the UNIQ summer school. I’ve been teaching on it for several years now, and it’s always one of the most rewarding parts of my year. In modern languages we invite between sixty and eighty sixth-formers from state schools across the UK to join us for a four-day course of language and cultural study and an experience of student life. It’s aimed at people who are just finishing Year 12 in England and Wales (Year 13 in Northern Ireland and S5 in Scotland), who are interested in studying modern languages at university and curious to check out what Oxford is like. We run courses for students of French, Spanish and German, all of which include some language work and broader cultural studies designed to give you a taste of the university course as well as helping with your sixth-form studies. Plus, every course also offers a dip into some of the other languages and cultures you might choose to pick up from scratch in a degree course here, such as Portuguese, Russian, Italian, or Beginners’ German. Our undergraduate ambassadors look after you through your stay, and can tell you anything you want to know about being a student here. Plus, for those who are interested, there’s information and guidance about applying to study at Oxford as an undergraduate both during the summer school and in the run-up to the admissions process in the following autumn.

If you’d like to find out more, all the information about Oxford’s UNIQ summer school programme is here:

UNIQ website

Applications close in less than two weeks on Monday 7th February at 11pm, so act now if you think this could be for you, and please tell others who you think might be interested. I hope to meet many of you this summer.

UNIQ 2022 – Applications now open!

After two years of online delivery, UNIQ 2022 is delighted to be able to welcome Year 12 students back to Oxford! UNIQ 2022 will combine the best aspects of our residential summer school and sustained online programme to offer a hybrid UNIQ programme to 1600 students across the UK. 

UNIQ logo

What is UNIQ?

UNIQ is Oxford University’s flagship outreach programme for Year 12 students at UK state schools/colleges. It is completely free and prioritises places for students with good grades from backgrounds that are under-represented at Oxford and other universities. The UNIQ programme offers a fantastic opportunity for these students to immerse themselves in the Oxford environment, sample some of our teaching, and try out life as an Oxford student.

What does the programme entail?

UNIQ 2022 offers both an in-person residential in Oxford and an online support programme. Taking place over several months, UNIQ starts in April, with academic courses in the summer, followed by university admissions support.

During the summer residential, students have the opportunity to experience life as an Oxford undergraduate by staying in an Oxford college and exploring the city for themselves. They will also get to know some of our Oxford undergraduates and work with our academics in face to face lectures, labs and tutorials.

What does this look like for Modern Languages?

For Modern Languages, there will be courses available for Spanish, French, and German. All three courses enable students to explore the language, literature, theatre, film, and linguistics of each discipline, while also providing the opportunity to have a taster of four other European languages at a beginners’ level.

Our aim is to give students a taste of what it is really like to study Modern Languages at Oxford, and to provide a sense of the breadth of our courses – including several of the languages you can study here as a beginner.

UNIQ student testimony

What are the benefits?

Throughout the UNIQ programme, students will explore subjects they love and gain a real insight into Oxford life, helping them to prepare for university, and decide what is right for them. UNIQ also enables students with similar interests in local regions and across the UK to connect with each other through social and academic activities.

Most UNIQ students go on to apply to the University of Oxford and they also get help to prepare for our admissions tests and interviews. In general, UNIQ students who apply to Oxford have a higher rate of success than other applicants.

How do I apply?

We welcome applications from:

  • Year 12 students from England and Wales, in the first year of A level studies or equivalent
  • Year 13 students from Northern Ireland, in the first year of A level studies or equivalent
  • S5 students from Scotland, studying Highers or equivalent

The online application process is quick and easy – it only takes 15 minutes! – and can be completed via the UNIQ website. Applications close on Monday 7th February at 11pm.

You will need:

  • the name of the school where you did your GCSEs (or equivalent) or your Nationals if you are a Scottish student.
  • the name of your current school.
  • your first and second choice UNIQ courses.
  • your teacher’s surname and email address.
  • a list of your qualifications.

As UNIQ is an access programme, admission to UNIQ 2022 will be based on a range of criteria that relate to students’ academic potential and socio-economic background. You can read more about this here.

UNIQ student testimony

Good luck to all applicants!

FRENCH AND SPANISH FLASH FICTION COMPETITIONS NOW OPEN!

We’re delighted to announce the return of our ever-popular French and Spanish flash fiction competitions for school students. If you are learning French and/or Spanish in Years 7-13, you are invited to send us a *very* short story to be in with a chance of winning up to £100. Read on to find out more…

What is Flash Fiction?

We’re looking for a complete story, written in French or Spanish, using NO MORE THAN 100 WORDS.

What are the judges looking for?

We’ll be looking for imagination and narrative flair, as well as your ability to write in French or Spanish. Your use of French or Spanish will be considered in the context of your age and year group: in other words, we will not expect younger pupils to compete against older pupils linguistically. For inspiration, you can read last year’s winning entries for French here, and for Spanish here.

What do I win?

There are two categories: Years 7-11 and Years 12-13. A first prize of £100 will be awarded to the winning entry in each category, with runner-up prizes of £25. The winning entries will be published on this blog, if you give us permission to do so.

How do I enter?

The deadline for submissions is noon on Thursday 31st March 2022. If you would like to submit a story in French please do so via our online submission portal here. If you would like to submit a story in Spanish please do so here.

You may only submit one story per language but you are welcome to submit one story in French AND one story in Spanish if you would like to. Your submission should be uploaded as a Word document or PDF.

Please note that, because of GDPR, teachers cannot enter on their students’ behalf: students must submit their entries themselves.

If you have any questions, please email us at schools.liaison@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk.

Bonne chance à tous!

¡Buena suerte a todos!