The Olympic Games in French and Spanish
Bishop's Stortford SLN
School No 17209
Ó Hertfordshire Development Centre Page 2 of 1/Good Practice - Case Study
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The Olympic Games in French and Spanish
The Olympic Games in French and Spanish
In 2011/2012 Birchwood High School and the Leventhorpe School invited Year 6 students from two local Primary Schools to join them for an Olympic Day in French and Spanish. The idea was to ease the transition between KS2 and KS3 by using the 2012 Olympics as a tool.
Stage 1
The Leventhorpe School and Birchwood High School held the initial meeting to decide on a plan of action. We both chose a local Primary School to partner with and invited Mandeville in Sawbridgeworth and Manor Fields in Bishop’s Stortford to join our SLN meetings. Our next decision was which language would be the focus of the day and from which year group we would choose our Language Leaders. Leventhorpe decided on Spanish with Year 9 Language Leaders. Birchwood chose French with Year 10 Language Leaders.
Stage 2
Over the next few months teachers from all four schools got together to plan the day. We relied heavily on the Bushey Meads planning from last year initially and gradually developed and adapted the activities to suit our own needs. We decided to hold our Olympic Day simultaneously on 4 July at each secondary school. Prior to this day our Language Leaders developed a workbook for the Year 6 students and had a few sessions in the primary school teaching the vocabulary to the Year 6 students.
Stage 3
When the day arrived we kept our fingers crossed for some dry weather and on the whole we were lucky. At Birchwood we had 60 Year 6 students arrive with 3 Manor Fields teachers to support. Our Year 10 Language Leaders rose to the challenge and lead the activities with confidence. We had also planned an Olympic Song, sorbets, a school trail and an Awards Ceremony to which the parents were invited. The student feedback was excellent with the main complaint being that we had not chosen a sunny day!
The Leventhorpe’s day was equally as successful. Their day was planned in a similar way to the one at Birchwood, but they also had Year 9 ‘roving reporters’ to gather feedback on the day. Please follow the link to read their reports: http://www.leventhorpe.net/news-and-events/newsletter/2012/07/51.aspx
Ó Hertfordshire Development Centre Page 2 of 1/Good Practice - Case Study
www.thegrid.org.uk/goodpractice/casestudies/ School Name