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Spanish Springs at Summerhill (SSS)
Start date: Oct 3, 2016, End date: Jan 2, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The 'Spanish Springs in Summerhill' (SSS) Project is designed to build Summerhill Primary School's capacity to teach Spanish and to enhance our profile as a truly European school.We are a small, one-form entry community primary school in the suburbs of Liverpool with a large staff due to high numbers of children with complex special needs. Through a relentless drive to raise standards in the core subjects and a major focus on staff well-being we manage to achieve excellent academic results. But we also care about every other aspect of our children's development and provide them with a wide-ranging curriculum that includes Forest School and an inspirational Arts programme.We have been confidently providing the new National Curriculum since its introduction in September 2014, but realise that our capacity to deliver the language programme is lacking compared to others.In 2014 we took our first major steps towards internationalising our curriculum when six staff engaged in a Training and Teaching Assignment in Poland. We have since developed our relationship with the Polish school, hosting them twice in England and sending six more staff to learn from them in Poland. This has had a huge impact on the development of the school as well as on individual staff. The SSS Project builds on the learning from the Partners In Poland Project and will take us to a new level in becoming an international school.We have set out a three year (2015 - 2018) European School Development Plan which encompasses our vision for the immediate future. Through the SSS project we aim to take significant steps towards fulfilling three of the main aspirations in this plan. Specifically, through the project we want to build capacity to develop and deliver a quality Modern Foreign Language programme, and also to promote staff well-being in order to maintain a strong professional profile. A longer term aim is to provide pupils with opportunities to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Spanish, and this we hope to fully achieve by organising pupil mobilities in a later project.The main activity funded by Erasmus+ will be structured training courses for Summerhill staff in Spain. Two groups of about seven, comprising both teaching and non-teaching staff, will commit part of their alloted school holidays to the week long training courses, which will be selected for their capacity to develop personal Spanish language skills AND Spanish teaching skills. Meanwhile, the school curriculum will be adjusted to include Spanish Language learning in Reception, Y1 and Y2 as well as in the Juniors, and all classes will be involved in making links with Spanish schools through eTwinning. The SSS Project will be led and managed by an Erasmus+ Management Group (E+MG) comprising a Governor, Headteacher, Languages Co-ordinator (who teaches in KS1) and the KS2 leader. This group will oversee all aspects of the project and ensure that the desired objectives are achieved as far as possible. We will be investing a lot of time and energy into this project and expect it to have a major impact on whole school development.The fully-immersive training and preparatory work will greatly enhance staff foreign language competence, raise staff awareness and understanding of Spain and the Spanish culture, and offer them the opportunity to build networks of international contacts. We also expect it to develop staff pedagogical knowledge so that they return with a clearer understanding of how to teach Spanish and how to respond to the needs of individual children in this subject.We know from previous experience with the PIP project that staff will also develop personally in terms of confidence and inter-personal skills, giving them improved capacity for promotion and greater job-satisfaction. From the excitement of learning a new language they may well see the benefits of lifelong learning and be enthused to seek and take other opportunities as they arise.Pupils will benefit from the project as their Language curriculum is dramatically improved and the school becomes bi-lingual in its approach. In the long term they will benefit from being involved in mobilities to Spain themselves and as generations of pupils receive an excellent languages education they will contribute to a more cohesive society and a more skilled and internationalised workforce. The school will be able to boast a modernised curriculum and be a truly European community with a robust understanding of linguistic and cultural diversity.

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