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St Margaret's Language Project
Start date: Sep 1, 2016, End date: Aug 31, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Our main objective is to reverse the decline in uptake of MFL and to encourage more pupils to see languages as important and relevant to their own lives through making our teaching as up-to-date and exciting as possible. We want to involve other departments in cross curricular activities and broaden our provision, offering pupils more learning opportunities through the introduction of Italian.We want to improve the language skills of our MFL staff, so that they all feel confident to teach Spanish and French to a high level, can be more flexible in their current role and reinvigorate their enthusiasm for teaching. We also want to offer opportunities to our LSAs to improve their own language and cultural knowledge and understanding of the ways children learn languages, helping them to support learners and respond better to their individual needs. We want to develop links with schools in Europe and create opportunities for regular joint working and class to class communication, giving our learners an insight into the lives of European pupils of their own age, leading to greater understanding, friendship, a more positive attitude towards other cultures and people. We want to improve teaching methodology, in particular, find new ways to support SEN/EAL pupils, increase literacy skills and raise attainment across the curriculum. To meet our needs, we plan to develop a project involving staff members taking part in immersion courses in Spain, France and Italy. Participation in the courses will result in much improved language skills, increased knowledge of current language usage and up-to-date culture, and an insight into new and innovative teaching methodology and effective strategies.We will introduce language clubs and all participating members of staff will contribute towards these. We will particularly focus on encouraging the uptake of Italian. The visits will be an opportunity to gather authentic resources that will match the interests of our pupils. All participants will be involved in developing teaching materials which will be made available to the rest of the staff and through our school website.We will focus on making changes to our teaching of our SEN/EAL pupils and integrating materials and methodologies which will help us to support their understanding of English leading to better attainment across the curriculum.The changes we will make will reinvigorate our teaching of languages, allowing us to give our pupils and improved learning experience, more relevant and interesting to them and taking into account the particular interests and learning styles of our boys.The immediate impact will be to raise the profile of languages within the school and to create a buzz about language learning leading to an increase in uptake of languages in our school as our pupils will understand the importance and relevance of language learning and language will become an extremely enjoyable experience that many more pupils will wish to take advantage of. MFL teachers will have the capacity to teach more languages to a higher level and a reinvigorated approach with better methodology and resources and more teaching ideas. LSAs will feel more confident and passionate about languages and provide more accurate and specific support in language lessons to pupils who struggle with languages and literacy and imbue students with an enthusiasm for other languages and cultures. Staff from other departments will bring a European dimension into their teaching and will become more flexible within their role, developing an interest in languages and other cultures, potentially impacting on them in the long term. Pupils will become more outward looking and be more likely to travel in the future and perhaps consider education and career opportunities in other countries.There will be an impact on their learning due to better trained teachers, and support staff who know their individual needs and can tailor their teaching to this. In particular, there will be an impact on the attainment of pupils with SEN/EAL, and literacy skills will improve in general as staff become more aware of ways in which language can reinforce literacy concepts. The programme of dissemination events will include regular in-house feedback and training sessions, led by course participants and involving the whole school. We will also roll out training to other schools in our local area using training packages developed by course participants. Pupils will have a zest for language learning, passed on to them by well-trained classroom teachers and well informed LSAs who feel confident in using target language in the classroom. The long-term impact on pupils is that they grow up with positive attitudes towards foreign countries and ‘otherness’, a healthy curiosity about other languages and cultures and more appreciation of and empathy towards foreigners.
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