SCHOOLS Minister Nick Gibb has praised a new language teaching partnership between Dallam School, Milthorpe, and the University of Cumbria.

Mr Gibb described the project, which involves future language teachers being trained at Dallam, as ‘potentially inspirational’ at a national level.

The minister, who offcially opened the new unit on Monday, said: “Languages are so important, but over the last 10 years we have seen a dramatic drop in students taking them. As a country, we can’t allow this situation to carry on.

“That’s why I welcome this very good initiative involving a school which does extremely well in language teaching.”

The specialist language school’s collaboration with the university is described as a ‘revolutionary’ way of training modern teachers. From September, modern language teaching students will be based at rather than being taught in the university’s Lancaster campus. The aim is to fur-ther improve language teaching at Dallam while also providing newly-trained languages teachers with a better understanding of working in a school. Dallam head teacher Steve Holdup said: “There is a lot of innovation in education at the moment and it’s happ-ening here in the South Lakes where schools do so well in their Ofsted inspections. This collaboration is a good example. The minister was keen to learn about what we are doing and we were very pleased that our work is being recognised by such a high level visit, a first for the minister in Cumbria.”

Dr Sam Twiselton, the Uni-versity of Cumbria’s Dean of the Faculty of Education, said: "We are extremely proud of the Learning Partnership model and are delighted to have this opportunity to demonstrate its value and success to the Minister for Schools. The University of Cumbria is at the forefront of innovation in teacher education and this is just one example of our developmental work within the sector."

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron said: "Being able to take the minister to see my outstanding local school, Dallam, and to let Mr Gibb see for himself the strength of the partnership that Dallam has with the University of Cumbria, clasroom by classroom, is a wonderful opportunity.”