Tarika Athiraman and Isla Virtue (Y9) have won the national competition for the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators, run by Queen’s College, Oxford University in the Mandarin Level 1 category.
Olivia Robertson (Y10) was crowned the regional North East prize winner for Mandarin Level 3 and Emma Hemminger (Y12) took home the North East champion title for Level 4 German.
The competition took place in June with more than 500 schools and over 1,000 entries from across the UK competing for the prize. The competition is inspired by the life and work of the great translator Anthea Bell, who amongst many other well-known favourites, translated the Asterix comic book series into English. The Anthea Bell Prize aims to promote language learning in the UK and to inspire creativity in the classroom.
A team of translators from across the country collaborated with Oxford University languages undergraduates to judge the competition.
Mandarin teacher, Miss Khalid, and German teacher, Ms Schneider, commented:
“After such a disrupted school year which was particularly challenging for language learning, it is a fantastic achievement for our students to compete and win in this national competition. We are very proud of all the students who participated and showed great resilience, creativity and enthusiasm for their languages despite the arduous time they have had.”