Russian has been taught at Hampton for more than thirty years and our Russian teachers are passionate about the subject and introducing the boys to the language and folklore traditions as well as world-renowned literature and the arts.
Hampton School has two full-time Russian teachers, one of whom is a native speaker. Both have considerable experience of life in Russia and share a love of all aspects of the language, culture and literature. The Department also has a dedicated part-time Russian-native speaking language assistant who regularly works with our pupils to further develop their spoken Russian and prepare them for public speaking examinations, such as GCSE and A Level.
Pupils can opt to study Russian from the Third Year (Year 9). Half-way through our one-year Beginners Course they can read confidently in Russian and by the end of the course they can talk and write about themselves, their family and pets, the town and house they live in, weather and seasons, traditional food they like and dislike, and how they spend their free time. The pupils are able to use a variety of grammatical structures, adjectives, connectives and conjunctions to produce longer and more complex sentences both written and spoken.
Hamptonians have the opportunity to continue their Russian studies to GCSE and later A Level. Both courses allow them to continue studying the language more extensively as well as learn about the other countries and speaking communities where Russian is widely spoken. We are also proud of our consistently excellent results at GCSE and A Level.
Pupils who study Russian A Level are offered weekly extension lessons for those who would like to delve deeper into the intricacies of Russian grammar and vocabulary or have a go at analysing Russian literature. The majority of the pupils choose to continue studying the language at many well-respected universities in the UK, including Oxbridge.
CO-CURRICULAR
We offer a cultural and educational Russian taster course to all Second Year pupils where they learn interesting facts about Russian and the countries where Russian is spoken, such as their geography, history, sports, food and folklore. They also have a chance to familiarise themselves with the Russian alphabet, as well as read, write and count a little.
Our Russianists across all year groups enjoy visits and participation in various cultural and educational events which take place both in and outside of Hampton.
The Russian Department has an established partnership with the Russian speaking Tallinn Tynismae Science School in Estonia. GCSE and A Level Russianists take part in weekly Russian speaking practice with a native speaker partner via videoconference using the Spellian platform. Our pupils have also visited Tallinn in Estonia and Riga in Latvia to learn about the historical connections between Baltic countries and Russian culture, politics and the arts. During the trip the Hamptonians had plenty of opportunities to practise their spoken Russian.
Russian is a world language spoken by approximately 258 million people, an official language in four countries and an unofficial lingua franca throughout countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Knowledge of Russian can also be a springboard to learn another Eastern European Language. With the increasing desirability of being multilingual in the 21st century world we believe that the UK will continue needing Russian and Eastern European language specialists and that the demand for Russian speakers will only increase in the future. At Hampton we endeavour to provide a wide range of opportunities for the boys to learn and study Russian in a global context.
