Heritage Language GCSEs
Support available
Where a student has well-developed skills in their first language and where there is a GCSE available in that language, EMTAS recommends the student is entered for the GCSE. Often, students achieve very good grades in their Heritage Language GCSEs and this can be a bonus when they are applying for college places. It is not necessary to wait until the student is in Year 11 to enter them for a Heritage Language GCSE but bear in mind that sometimes the themes of the exams are better-suited to older students (Year 9 onwards).
The EMTAS GCSE Heritage Language Support leaflet gives an overview of the support available from EMTAS for Heritage Language GCSEs together with answers to some frequently asked questions.
Details of the packages available
To request support, read the support agreement between EMTAS and schools, and then complete the GCSE Support Request Form.
Support available for the summer 2025 GCSE exam series
For the summer 2025 GCSE series, we are offering bespoke packages of support for the following languages:
- Arabic
- Cantonese
- French
- German
- Greek
- Italian
- Mandarin
- Persian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
- Turkish
- Urdu
For further information, please contact [email protected].
EMTAS can only deal with requests for support with Heritage Language GCSEs from schools.
Heritage Language GCSE Results 2024
Schools have provided EMTAS with the results achieved by 172 of the students who were supported by EMTAS Bilingual Assistants to take heritage language GCSEs in the summer 2024 exam series:
| Language | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic (10) | 2 | 1 | 7 | |||
| Cantonese (20) | 1 | 19 | ||||
| German (3) | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Greek (2) | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Italian (6) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Mandarin (6) | 6 | |||||
| Persian (4) | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Polish (59) | 2 | 3 | 1 | 11 | 42 | |
| Portuguese (22) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 5 |
| Russian (31) | 1 | 1 | 5 | 24 | ||
| Turkish (9) | 1 | 2 | 6 | |||
| Totals (172) | 3 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 32 | 113 |
Congratulations from all at EMTAS on such fantastic GCSE results.