Y10 French have really enjoyed making a video for their new pen pals in France. They were interviewing each other about friendship and relationships. This year’s video is the longest as nearly all students wanted to take part. They sounded very confident and I am sure the French class will be wowed. This year’s video also includes “bloopers” as there were a few giggles!
Pen Pal Letters
Y9 French have been working hard on their pen pal letters. They have prepared origami houses which look fabulous! They are describing themselves, writing about their pets, family and houses.
Pen Pal Scheme
Year 8 have initiated a pen pal scheme with students from the Sickingen-Gymnasium in the German city of Landstuhl. This has enabled the students to use both the present and perfect tenses to discuss themselves and a recent holiday they’ve experienced. Additionally, it provides the students with an opportunity to engage in conversations with native speakers of the language and exchange perspectives on their own experiences as well as those of their pen pals living in the United Kingdom and Germany.
Mr Briscoe
MFL Department
MFL Baking Competition
We finished the Languages and Literature festival with our third annual MFL Baking Competition. We had over 30 entries which spanned the world with taste, texture and colour from a wide array of countries. Again, the quality of the bakes and cakes reached a very high standard.
Mrs Gill, members of staff, student leadership and the bakers themselves had the delicious task on the last lunch time of half term of tasting the cakes and bakes and finding a winner for the criteria of ‘tastes good’, ‘smells good’, ‘looks good’.
The Richard Pye Language Innovation Zone was, for one afternoon only, transformed into a Cake Shop, where our very willing tasters were spoiled for choice. An excellent afternoon was had by all.
The winners for each year group will be announced very shortly.
Here are some of our most memorable photos:
Mrs Williams
MFL Department
Oktoberfest Celebrations
This week marks the end of the 188th Oktoberfest that is celebrated from mid-September through to the 3rd October in München, Bayern, South Germany. Oktoberfest is the world’s largest Volksfest, featuring a beer festival and a travelling carnival. It is held annually in Munich, Bavaria, running from mid or late September to around the first Sunday in October, with more than six million international and national visitors attending the event. This week, Year 8 have been learning all about the cultural aspects of this festival and we made some Lebkuchenherzen out of paper. Traditionally, these are gingerbread biscuits with colourful icing representing the blue and white colours of Bavaria and lots of nice messages piped on to them. Mrs Gill’s classes designed their own Lebkuchenherzen and I think you will agree that they definitely look realistic and have some lovely German messages on them!
French Cinema Club
Le Club Ciné is currently showing “Le Petit Nicolas”. This was very well attended last week and it is great to see so many students interested in watching a film in a foreign language. This is a great way to listen to pronunciation, get an insight into the culture and improve vocabulary. A bientôt!
Year 7 German
Year 7 have enjoyed practising their mental arithmetic skills using their brand-new dice last Friday afternoon with Frau Raine. They first worked in pairs adding numbers up in German, then in 3s and then in 4s. We will keep using them in lesson. All students in Year 7 are given a yellow dice to use with various games and activities. Look after them, Year 7!
Meet the Teacher
My name is Mr Briscoe. I am relatively new to the education sector. However, coaching and mentoring people is not new to me, as I have worked as a personal trainer and group exercise instructor for most of my working life. Regarding my linguistic background, I have been a passionate linguist for most of my life, with German being my focus and learning French and Spanish to varying degrees of proficiency. My love for German stemmed from a curiosity of the language and its culture. Subsequently, this curiosity led me to travel in and around Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein and Switzerland and meet some amazing people, who have become great friends. Finally, I am a father, as well as a huge Preston North End fan and a gym fanatic.
MFL Department News
Welcome to our first newsletter of the year in MFL and what a busy first half term we have had so far. We have welcomed our new teacher of German who temporarily replaces Mrs Ingram on maternity leave. Mr Briscoe did start with us in the summer term last year but is now with us full time until the Summer term 2024. We have launched our German and French film clubs and all our students have been using our online learning platforms such as Quizlet, Blooket and Active Learn. All students should now have logins for these three platforms to access our vocabulary and tasks. There have been some minor issues with Active Learn that we are currently sorting out with students in lessons and this should be sorted shortly.
We have been learning how to introduce ourselves in German in Year 7, learning our greetings, phonics and counting to 20. In Year 8 we have been learning about travelling around Germany and Year 9 have been talking about our role models and writing descriptions. In Year 10, students have made a super start to GCSE German and French learning about school life in Germany and in French, we have been learning about friendships and family. In Year 11, both our German and French students have completed their first mock speaking exam and this was a huge success. We are really proud of all of our students arriving on time, completing the 3 tasks in the exam to a really high standard and preparing themselves well for the next one that will take place in January 2024. Well done to all of our students!
Next week marks the start of our two-week Language and Literature Festival and we have a huge amount of exciting activities planned for this fortnight in the languages department. Year 7s will get the chance to start our Year 7 Spelling Bee competition, which is a national competition that takes places during the year and aims to find the best German spelling bees in the country. Last year, we reached the national final at Cambridge University. We have some amazing linguists this year who I am sure will enjoy getting involved in our lunchtime club to practise ready for the regional competition and see how many German words they can spell in a minute. Could you be the next Spelling Bee Champion to take on our local high schools? We will also be launching our bake off within the MFL department for all year groups. Can you produce the best language-based cake for our competition? We will also begin the process of writing letters to our French and German partner schools which I am really looking forward to. How exciting to get to know our French and German students in our partner schools! We will also be learning all about German history, in particular, the Berlin Wall and the factors leading up to that plus we will be building our own. Watch this space to see if any of us escape over it!
Mrs Gill
Curriculum Leader for MFL
Madam Raine’s Blooket Games
Here in the MFL team, we play lots of games in French and German to help us remember, recall and retrieve our vocabulary. Mrs Raine’s class have been extra competitive this year especially in Blooket. “Not your usual way to hold a laptop”, thought Mrs Raine! Year 7 students were retrieving vocabulary from Module 1 by playing Crypto Hack on Blooket. As you can see, those passwords were kept very safe indeed!
Mrs Gill, Curriculum Leader for MFL
