Au revoir... Language school set to close after 30 years

Based in the Arcade in St Peter Port, the school will close its doors permanently after 5 September, the last day of its final holiday club.

Director and owner Anna Lisa Detassis, who took over running the school in 2014, said that she had grown tired of having to combat a range of external factors that were putting relentless pressure on the business.

‘Staff are incredibly difficult to find, and post-Covid our overheads have become too high, so we have been dealing with smaller and smaller margins,’ she said.

‘Our after-school club remains popular but there just aren’t enough people in general. Coming here is a luxury that people have had to cut back on due to the cost of living.’

Founded in 1991, Accent initially started as a summer school for foreign students, before gradually expanding to include after-school clubs and adult lessons.

It offered lessons in eight languages, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.

At its peak the school had between 15 and 20 members of staff, including three full-time French and Spanish teachers.

‘Before Covid we would get about 300 to 350 students coming every summer, 500 if you include school trips,’ Mrs Detassis said.

‘We also had about 60 families who would come in for lessons, now we only have four.’

She blamed the war in Ukraine and Brexit as additional reasons for the school’s closure.

‘Brexit has made it incredibly difficult to recruit staff. It took me two and a half months to find one French teacher, which is a long time.’

She said that the opportunity to learn a foreign language in Guernsey would be heavily impacted by the school’s closure.

‘Now there will only be the College of FE for adults, while there will be nothing for children outside of school except for private tutors.’

She added that the closure was reflective of problems seen in the UK.

‘Languages are dying in schools, English-speaking people don’t see the need to learn another language as they presume that everyone else speaks English, or that they can just use technology like Google Translate to get by.

‘There is a world of opportunity out there if you commit to putting in the effort.

‘More hours need to be dedicated to the provision, especially early on in nurseries like what is done in Europe.’

Mrs Detassis is set to return to a career in finance, but remained hopeful that someone may be willing to take over the running of the school.

‘It’s heartbreaking as I’ve loved teaching others, it’s a very personal business and has been so much fun.’