Exactly how two schools won awards for their primary languages
Note before reading- This blog is our lead trainer’s interpretation of the case studies of two award-winning primary languages schools, who spoke at our network meeting last week. We have timestamped throughout the blog, so you can refer to the video to listen in greater depth.
At our PLN Networking twilight last week, we heard from two guest speakers; Carol Taylor from Queen’s Park CE Primary School and Jo Richardson from Heyes Lane Primary School, both of whom were Planet Award winners (Pics of them at conference/actual Planet Award trophies) at this year’s Above and Beyond conference in June. Carol won the accolade of ‘Continued Outstanding Achievement’ and Jo won the ‘KS1 implementation’ award for her school. It was truly heart-warming to hear their ‘stories’ from how they came to teach languages at their school using the PLN schemes, their process which led to applying for a Planet Award and the impact winning has subsequently had on their pupils and their school. Here are my six take-aways from what they had to share.
1 (2:28 – 26:27) Despite always loving languages, Carol remembers still feeling overwhelmed by her ‘new’ role when she first started teaching languages and being responsible for language learning at her school. Support from PLN became invaluable (05:26). The subject gained momentum and allowed her the confidence to apply for the Primary Languages Development Award (PLDA) (5:46 – 7:48). She successfully gained accreditation in 2017 and explained that enrolling in the process provided structure for her role which, in turn, improved provision. The process allowed her to audit school improvement planning, subject coordination, staff CPD, teaching and learning, tracking and assessment, links abroad and transition to KS3. Carol’s vision was to make the teaching of primary languages ‘doable’ and rewarding for her colleagues as well as fun and purposeful for her students.
2 Carol explained that the PLN scheme is effectively sequenced and planned to allow for progression. However, the beauty of the scheme is it can be adapted to suit your school context (7:49 – 15:39). Carol ‘tailored’ planning to highlight coverage of all four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) as well as grammar, phonics, culture and celebration. She also made ‘end point’ documents to demonstrate progression according to Queen’s Park school’s ‘CROWN’ curriculum and a road map for children to visualise their own progress. Carol also met with the KS3 Head of Languages at her local high school and aligned her scheme with theirs. She combined the PLN knowledge organisers for the year and split them into the three sections of the French flag.
3 Part of what made Carol’s submission a worthy winner of the Continued Outstanding Achievement award was her commitment to diversity and languages (15:40 - 19:58). Carol shared her ‘in this classroom we speak’ poster; a celebration of the different home heritage languages spoken within each class. Her whole-school languages display showed examples of progress across KS2 as well as interactive phonics pockets where graphemes could be added to pockets every time the children came across them. Chinese mandarin is taught at Queen’s Park as well after a request from a couple of native speaking families and Year 9 students deliver a German taster session to Year 6s as German is offered at the feeder high school. Queen’s Park is proud to involve their wider school community holding a ‘We love languages’ event with songs, games and counting activities to enjoy with parents and carers. Language ambassadors promote ‘where languages can take you’ promoting an aspirational element of language learning too.
4 Jo Richardson (26:27 - 52:23) described the ways language learning can be incorporated into KS1 (26:27 – 44:20). At Heyes Lane Primary school, Spanish is assigned to the PPA team, which ensures consistency each week. Spanish was ‘launched’ at Heyes Lane a couple of years ago with a celebration day including a La Liga football activity, a Spanish dance session and a photo booth opportunity. Despite initial apprehensions, the PPA team have ensured language teaching and learning is a positive experience for both children and staff and found they could adapt the PLN scheme to suit their needs including making reward stickers from PLN materials to use as individual rewards. The new PLN ‘Language Explorers’ scheme is proving even more effective and currently being used to update provision throughout KS1. Jo showed us wonderful examples of class ‘floor books’ to evidence whole-class activities and displays where completed units of vocabulary are moved up the wall to allow for new vocab. See Saw is used at the school to journal what happens in language lessons with parents and carers and in Y2 they move to individual books to evidence learning with self-assessment incorporated which paves the way perfectly for KS2. Jo showed us how target language signage allows for incidental reading around school and she also explained about her future plans to include languages into EYFS provision this year!
5 One golden nugget I took away from Jo’s presentation was in response to a question over the lack of time to deliver in KS1. Given that languages are not compulsory at this stage and there can often be a lack of confidence amongst staff to teach languages, Jo told us about a genius idea: incorporate language learning into Continuous Provision (44:25 – 50:44). As many Year 1 classrooms still have a continuous provision element, Jo explained how the PPA team plan and resource a simple activity for the class teacher to add as one of their activities. No extra time to prepare or deliver needed. No pressure for all/any of the children to engage. Call it a learning ‘challenge’ and let the children have fun with it. It can be as simple as laminating a few cards with target language words on for the children to trace over with a whiteboard pen or match to the correct picture. We discussed how the ‘team behind the scheme’ at PLN always try to create resources which our members would find helpful and this was certainly food for thought for me in terms of incorporating continuous provision resources into our Language Explorers scheme. So watch this space…
6 Both Carol and Jo’s big message was that if you are wondering whether to apply for a Planet Award to just ‘go for it’ (19:59 – 21:45). Carol said about applying for the award: ‘it gives you a sense of direction; a sense of achievement’. And in terms of impact, she explained how winning the award has ‘developed their reputation for languages at the school’. Their international work is seen as a strength. Governors and the Head teacher are thrilled and complimentary about the quality of language provision. She even told us other schools get in touch to ask for advice! And of course, it helps to feel more secure and well equipped for inspection. At a recent SIAMS (Faith school inspection) the idea of relationships and cultural capital certainly stood out as a strength largely to the work in language lessons. Don’t forget how bright and shiny those awards look in a school trophy cabinet and of course, winners are entitled to include their ‘Planet Languages’ digital badge on their school letter heads and websites too: a constant reminder not only of the high standards of provision at your school but also testament to your hard work and passion as a subject coordinator!
A huge thank you to both Carol and Jo!