A Great BIG Day for Languages!

What a great BIG day for Languages! And what a fabulous team of staff from the Languages Faculty at James Gillespie’s HIgh School, led by Ryan Irvine! The pace was energetic and snappy, the children were happy and all staff enthusiastically and expertly encouraged them to get involved and join in. Wonderful to see confidence build and shine throughout the day and a great way to meet cluster friends.

Taster sessions in French, Spanish, German, Urdu, Gaelic and Mandarin, ably led by our secondary colleagues, gave pupils an exciting introduction to the host of learning opportunities on offer at JGHS, which build on all the excellent practice in 1+2 Language learning in each of our primary schools. The focus was on skills for life, learning and work and we also want to engage families in finding out more about language learning.

A fantastic whole Cluster team event, with excellent support from all Headteachers, where everyone worked extremely well together to plan and organise. Thank you very much to Bethan Owen, City of Edinburgh Languages Development Officer, for securing National Improvement Framework (NIF) funding for this joyful event which we all hope will now become a regular feature in our cluster Transition calendar.

Pupils took notes throughout the day and will be asked to reflect on the event back at school. Staff will also review together to help plan next steps for follow up. Miss Rogerson had a great idea already! She suggested back in our own schools, we could involve bilingual pupils designing lessons and running a similar style carousel based on all the languages spoken in Primary Six. Watch this space for more ideas on language learning!