Coordinators' October check list

Moving in to the second academic month of primary language learning,you have hopefully put in to place the suggestions from the "First week back coordinators' checklist " blog post.

Now it's time for us all to get that little bit creative and in many of our schools to produce pieces of spoken and written work that celebrate our first half term's teaching and learning of primary languages. Here are some next steps for October.....

1. Take time to talk with staff about activities they have seen the children enjoy in their learning of a primary language in September.
2. Celebrate the learning of a primary language in your school newsletter this month, with a picture and a short text about your European Day of Languages celebrations or some of the activities the staff have shared with you.
3. Consider a "welcome board" on a school corridor  in school that celebrates all the languages spoken already in your school. "In our school we speak ......" and greetings in the different languages labelled with the name of the language.
4. Ask teachers to keep a record of a spoken piece of work (a class song/ rhyme/ a selection of spoken phrases by a range of children on class) recorded as sound files and then uploaded to the class /year group folder in the Userfiles on the VLE.
5. Ask staff responsible, to complete the tracking sheet for the half term .Remember one tracking sheet per class for the whole year , updated half termly and photocpied and popped in your pigeon hole to keep you updated as the coordinator. You can find these in the Subject Planning area of the VLE in the  MFL coordinators' tools folder in the assessment subfolder.  
6. If staff are using the Puzzle It Out activities- start of October is a good time to remind staff to complete the Puzzle It Out activities you have decided to do this half term .It may just be the listening or just the speaking or all four core skill activities. (There are now native speaker listening sound files for the activities in the MFL coordinators' assessment folder in the Subject Planning area of the VLE ).
7. Celebrate Autumn in the target language as it lends itself beautifully to colours, directions, songs and allows you to take steps toward cross curricular language learning. You will find songs in our Cross Curricular area of the VLE in the Geography folder  and in the "Seasons" sub folder. Plus here are some  blog post ideas we have used in the past - Autumn celebrations and a touch of creativity, Autumn and a walk in the park .You will also find that the lesson plans in Y3 and Y4 lead staff to practise target language with an Autumn theme too at the start of next half term.
8. Looking for a creative way to gather written evidence of progress, you may like our "Autumn" themed idea : Writing and reviewing a half term's progress with Autumn leaves
9. Prepare for Bonfire Night and ask for 5 minutes in a staff meeting before the end of half term to share the "Fantastic Fireworks" resources on the VLE .You can find these in French,Spanish and German in the Network Resources area of the VLE in the local network meetings folder. Materials in "Fantastic Fireworks" include a simple rhyme for KS1 and our ever popular fireworks poem for KS2 plus additional games and activities for KS2. We shared some of these ideas here in blog posts:  KS1 rockets and colours fireworks song   ,Physical sentence prompts and fantastical fireworks for UKS2  This will make a great first week back after half term and perhaps lead to a  whole school assembly with class performances and/or a whole school display.
10. And finally time to start considering that Christmas poem or song .Take a look in Teaching Resources area of the VLE in Seasonal Specials Autumn 2 as there are lots of authentic French,Spanish and German songs and poems to inspire you here .