The annual meeting took place in the Howard Theatre, Downing College, Cambridge on 29 and 30 March.

• 104 delegates attended across the two days. 82 joined us for OPS 2014.
• 75 per cent of the secondary school teachers attending were new to OPS.
• 42 per cent of the secondary school teachers attending represented the state sector.
• 38 independent schools were represented at OPS 2015.
• Several longstanding members of the Society were present, including one delegate who has been coming to OPS annual meetings for the past 50 years.
• Our target regions remain the North East and South West of England, and Wales.

Doctoral candidate Elspeth Wilson presented her research at OPS 2015

PROGRAMME

Sunday 29 March

2pm        Check in opens for Overnight delegates

4pm          Meeting registration and refreshments for Overnight and Day + Dinner delegates
Elspeth Wilson and Dr Theodora Alexopoulou from the Department of Linguistics at Cambridge will present informally research conducted by the Cambridge Bilingualism Network.

5.15pm          Candelario Obeso on the Shores of Politics: Popular Republicanism in Nineteenth-Century Colombian Poetry
Dr Rory O’Bryen, University Senior Lecturer in Latin American Literature and Culture, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Cambridge

6.30pm          Networking drinks
The Senior Common Room, Downing College

7.30pm        OPS 2015 Dinner
After dinner speaker: Jocelyn Wyburd, Director of the Cambridge Language Centre and Chair of the National Advisory Board for Routes into Languages

Monday 30 March

9am          Meeting registration for Day delegates and refreshments

9.30am          Routes Into Languages: the initiative
Sarah Schechter, Project Manager of Routes Into Languages East, Anglia Ruskin University

10.15am          Does the language you speak influence the way you think?
Dr Henriëtte Hendriks, Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge

11am          Coffee break

11.15am          1870-71, or the War before the First World War
Dr Nicholas White, Reader in Modern French Literature, Department of French, University of Cambridge

12 noon          “Only a pen can ease my pain”: voices from Italian convents
Dr Abigail Brundin, Reader in Early Modern Literature and Culture, Department of Italian, University of Cambridge

Dr Abigail Brundin talks over lunch with OPS 2015 delegates

12.45pm          Lunch
Another chance to hear from Elspeth Wilson and Dr Theodora Alexopoulou (Department of Linguistics, Cambridge) about research conducted by the Cambridge Bilingualism Network.

1.30pm            The Cambridge Admissions Process: a Q+A session with the Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty
Panel discussion led by Professor Ian Roberts, Chair of Cambridge MML and OPS President

3pm          Optional social activity: a 90-minute tour of historic Cambridge and its colleges with Alumni Tours

The 2015 OPS Meeting was generously supported by a donation from the Willetts family.