Willow Bank Junior School French Fun Day 18 July 2007 Sue Mithen MFL Co-ordinator

Introduction Willow Bank Junior School held its first French Fun day last summer to celebrate our first year of teaching French to all the children in the school.

Our School We are a two-form entry junior school (8 classes) with 8 class teachers, a special needs teacher and 2 extra full- time teachers. Two staff members and a Teaching Assistant had fairly good French. Four others had some limited French but had been able to deliver the Year 3 curriculum to their classes over the year with support. The remainder had little or no French. We decided at the beginning of the year to teach French throughout the school with some teacher exchanges to cover all classes.

How we began to plan our French Fun Day We began very late! The idea was mooted to the staff at the beginning of the summer term. Initial enthusiasm was great but tempered by doubts about how to do it! Over the next few weeks we began to make a list of possibilities for activities to suit the talents and linguistic abilities of the staff. Teachers then were happy to sign up for their choice of activities. Meanwhile, I contacted our local secondary school to see if they would like to participate. I got a swift response as a group of Year 8 pupils with their teacher were already preparing to visit another primary school in the area.

After some discussion we agreed the following:  All children and even all members of staff wished to be involved.  We wanted it to be a celebration of our achievements so far and the emphasis was to be on having fun through French.  Children could come to school dressed in red, white and/or blue.  It would be a whole day event with some sharing at the end of the day.  Activities would be cross-curricular.  Children would stay with the same teacher throughout the day, but not necessarily their class teacher. The classes would be smaller as all teachers would take a group all day.  There would be a little funding for French food for each class from the Parent/Teacher association.

These are just some of the activities that took place on the day: Stories, songs and rhymes in French.

French artists: Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Victor Vasarely Children attempted pavement art, still life paintings, a giant reproduction done in pieces, water lilies and a gallery display with quiz.

Researching famous building in France and building our own Eiffel Tower out of newspaper.

Using ICT to research and present various aspects of France in Powerpoint presentations.

A pétanque tournament

Food tasting, a fruit shop, French breakfast etc

Waingels College students spent the whole day with us, teaching language games and devising simple puppet shows with our children.

Sharing! Finally, the whole school gathered together to share some of the things that we had done throughout the day: to finish we sang ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ in French

At the end of the day we felt that our French Fun day was a success because:  Everyone participated.  Everyone had fun.  Every one learnt something about France or the French language.  It inspired us to set about preparing for the second year of language learning at Willow Bank Junior School