The school became a specialist Science College four years ago in conjunction with Banovallum School and has been successful in re-designating for a further three years.

As a high-performing specialist school, however, it was offered the chance to apply for a second specialism.

Headmaster, Tim Peacock, said: "Language college status was an obvious choice for us because we already teach three modern languages to A level and our examination results have been exceptional. The exchange programmes we have established with partner schools near Le Mans in France, Hanover in Germany and in the Czech Republic already give us a genuinely international dimension. If Britain is to remain competitive in the world, it is vital that learning languages comes near the top of the agenda."

Head of Modern Languages, Catherine Marshall, said: "This is an extremely exciting time for the languages department, the school as a whole and the wider community. It gives us the opportunity to develop our links with local schools to a greater extent, in support of the National Strategy for Languages, to foster closer relationships with local businesses and to respond to the enthusiasm for language learning here.

"We have already begun a Latin club and a Mandarin Chinese club, both of which have proved extremely popular with students of all ages. We hope to initiate after-school Arabic classes in the near future and initiate links with Arabic-speaking countries in order to promote greater understanding of cultural differences."

Additional funding for languages becomes available to the school from April and the school will make a start on implementing its plans more fully from September 2008.