The first annual Cambridge Certificate Ceremony took place on September 18, 2021 during our annual Bilingual Family Day, and it was wonderful to have our erstwhile eighth graders join us at the event.
Éva Györke-Szilágyi, Managing Director of the Bilingual Program, greeted the students and their families and explained that there were two joyful reasons for the celebration: the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Bilingual Program and the results of the first in-house Cambridge B2 First for Schools official exam.
The very first Bilingual Program class completed Grade 8 in 2012, and since then more than 250 students in 10 classes have successfully finished the Program, with 76% achieving a Cambridge exam result at level B2 or higher.
In the spring of 2021, all 24 candidates achieved at least level B2 – our goal for the end of 8th grade – on the official in-house Cambridge B2 First for Schools exam. Of those 24 candidates, 7 earned a C1 level language exam certificate with their performance, exceeding the set goal!
Anthony Laudadio, Head of Education for Primary and High Schools and Jonathan Tilisky, the Main Class English Teacher of the former Krúdy Gyula English-Hungarian Bilingual Primary School eighth grade students, assisted in handing over the certificates.
The handover was followed by a few remarks by Anthony Laudadio, where he emphasized how proud our students should be of their results, as they have demonstrated their language skills in 5 areas (reading, writing, listening, speaking and the range of their use of English) as well as a wide range of subject knowledge (e.g., in science, mathematics or history). In addition, as a result of many years of communication with their native English-speaking teachers, they have delivered outstanding performance in the field of speaking skills.
Anthony Laudadio highlighted these skills and this knowledge as the “power of access” – students have opened for themselves not a window but a set of double doors to the world, giving them greater opportunities in their further studies and, beyond that, in the world of work, through language skills. He also called it the “power of opportunity”and asked students to turn this superpower, the power of language skills, into good practice and to make their dreams come true.
Congratulations to all the students! We look forward to hearing from them when they visit or “report” on their future success!
