I have just been looking at the mountain of resources from the course. What a valuable week it was and highly enjoyable. The children at school have enjoyed looking at pictures of the town and school. They instantly picked out 'no interactive whiteboards and no uniform'. It will be good to develop the links with French children so they can find out more. I am now going to enjoy a restful half term.
Trisha

We have been back for almost a week and it's been great sharing my experiences in Lille with all the children and staff in my school. This morning I did a whole school assembly and shared my photos of the visit and one of the songs with the children. They all joined in with the actions and most of the words. It was great! What a truly great experience to share with others in our school.

My week in Lille!

I thought I would share my experience of my week in Lille. I was very apprehensive about going as I am a HLTA rather than a teacher and also my French is not the best! However I ended up having a great time, learning lots and meeting some very lovely people. 

The first two days were quite difficult for me, but everyone was so lovely that I soon started to feel at ease. By day four I was really getting into the swing of things, and understanding an awful lot more French.

 The highlight of the trip for me has to be the French school, again I was apprehensive as I had been put in the group to teach secondary rather than primary (I work in Year 5/6). Once again I needn't have worried, the children were delightful and I rather liked being in secondary! 

I would recommend to anyone who would like to go on this trip, but is doubtful, to go ahead and take the plunge, you really won't regret it. I have come back feeling so much more confident about not just the language but teaching it too. The other real bonus is having met some fantastic people along the way, and a big thank you has to go to our course trainers Emilia Quaranta, Rosalind Venables, Sue Balmer and Nora Ferguenis. 

I hope I have inspired others to take this Language course, if I have you won't be sorry you have signed up! Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings :-) Au revoir, Dawn 

Jane's blog to pupils

I was blogging throughout the week to my school so have just copied and pasted it here with a few amendments... and it's back to front!

 jeudi 18 octobre

I've been to school today. The most enormous school I've ever seen.

This is just one part of it! The school has all ages here...

Primary - "Primaire"       Secondary - "College"     6th Form - "Lycee"

The desks in all the classrooms are in rows and don't have computers or an interactive whiteboard. Each has a blackboard instead. There are hardly any displays on the walls and the children don't wear school uniform. Even the teachers can wear whatever they like. Most people wore jeans. 

(PICS REMOVED FOR THIS OPEN BLOGSPOT)

These children are age 11 and age 14 so that means they are in the "College" where classrooms are very plain
 
There is just a blackboard and a TV monitor. The teacher ("professeur") can connect the laptop to this TV but there is NO INTERNET.

The Primaire was more exciting to look at, but they still sat in rows like the older children. There was no carpet area.

(PICS REMOVED FOR THIS OPEN BLOGSPOT)

This is the "Primaire" playground... and then in a classroom with year 4

you can see that the "Primaire" do allow some pictures on the walls here. These children could count to 20 in english, could say "my name is..." and also say the names of colours. So they are just like you!  Another big difference is....(Mr Moynihan will like this), everyone must buy their own exercise books, pens, pencils, scissors, glue sticks etc. Some children, rather than have notebooks, simply brought packets of paper in their rucksacks! I was also surprised that they use only one type of paper for every  type of lesson. I will bring some back if I can... it's most unusual, not at all like the paper in your exercise books. Do you think buying your own exercise books would be a good idea in our country?


Lunchtimes are wonderful in France. Everyone has a hot meal in this school as packed lunches are not allowed. There is a modern canteen where children have a 3 course meal and it is dished up on proper plates with proper cutlery. They have an hour and a half to relax and eat without being rushed, whilst they chat to friends. This is the same for the teachers who have their own separate canteen (and they can even have a glass of wine or beer if they want to!). The playtimes are similar to yours and they can always go outside here. No wet-play, they have large sheltered areas.



I was shown around the school by 3 pupils from year 8. The facilities in this school are so good because it is extremely large. Therefore they can also be used by other schools. For example, you won't believe this next picture...

(I'm sure this is not typical of all french schools!)

My favourite place was their library - it used to be a large chapel as you can see and had a very peaceful atmosphere. The girls told us they are also able to use the computers in here but they don't have internet connection. The children here would make use of information on a CD-ROM instead to research topics. At the end of this area was a smaller chapel and a place where children could come regularly. Even though this is a catholic school, RE is not taught as a subject.

There was a beautiful display in the chapel of Jesus, filled with photographs of the children with their families - I thought this might be something we could do too - what do you think?

During the day the teachers from England met with the French teachers and we swapped our contact details. One teacher was very keen to have a try at using our VLE. Do any of you remember when the school had an ICT room? When we didn't use laptops? Well, it's like that here. So this teacher will try to arrange for her pupils to contact Y6 soon but it's not going to be straight away. She needs to have a little practice first. The school was very welcoming and said they would love for anyone from England to visit them again one day - even you. Do you remember Albert the Teddy? He came to school today as well and made best friends with two of the Headteachers!

Tomorrow is my final day here and although I will be sad to leave everyone, and this very exciting place, I am looking forward to coming back and seeing you all again. I hope you are enjoying reading this blog and looking at the photographs. (Year 6.. there are plenty more photos for you to see in class too). I'm not sure if there will be a blog tomorrow night as there may not be time. If I don't log on, then I hope you all have an amazing time at the disco!

a bientot

 mercredi 17 octobre
Can you read the date? 
Today has been so busy. Everyone had to do a french activity to teach the rest of the group something. We did so many different types of learning, there were:-
memory games
songs with actions
crosswords
acting
rhymes
objects in a bag
storytelling
picture bingo (my activity)

My favourite one was an animation of a skiing penuin singing a different version of the YMCA song called "Moi, j'aime skier". (See if Mr Moynihan can find the joke in that title - it's very funny!).

The food here in France is "magnifique". We have to eat every day in local cafes and restaurants. French people are very serious about eating properly and have an hour and a half for lunch. They finish work later than we do. Here you see a picture of my lunch today. It was red pepper stuffed with meat with rice covered in a beautiful sauce. The evening meals are just as rich and always followed with a delicious dessert. I have never eaten so much in a week before! The french sure do eat in style! 

Another good thing about this trip is the amount of new people you get to meet. Everyone is different and it's exciting to find out about everyone's backgrounds and the children they teach. Our schools are all very different. Some have 800 children in a primary school and some have only 44.  In one school 90% of the children do not speak English as their main language.  Some people teach french to adults and some teach children for private lessons. My new friend, who teaches in Garway school not far from you, tells me that her children don't have to wear school uniform. So although everyone is different, that makes our group all the more interesting - there's plenty to talk about!

We have a very early start in the morning - off to the schools. I'm a bit sad though as we have now been told that the french schools hardly use computers in their classrooms and don't have interactive whiteboards. This means it will be difficult to have them work with us on the VLE. So we will just have to wait and see what happens (I'll do my best to arrange something for you Y6!) 

Tuesday 16th October

Hello everyone - as you can see, I have 2 stickers today - hoorray! I bet you will all laugh at this - they were for being good at describing a duck (in french). Today my group have been trying different, games, storytelling and actions to help learn french. I shall definitely be trying them with you when I get back - it makes learning french words much easier and have fun at the same time.

This afternoon we all had an amazing guided tour of Old Lille (Vieux Lille). I found this quite tricky as our Guide described all about the history, buildings and culture of Lille... entirely in French. It was hard for me to keep up. Luckily about half of the other teachers on this course are secondary school french teachers so they would whisper the English to help us. It was amusing when the guide said something funny , and half of the group burst out laughing while the rest of us stayed quiet... we didn't get the joke! The tour lasted for over 2 hours. Here are some of the things we saw... (but you have to translate this for yourselves)
des grands batiments officiale, une grand cathedrale, des cafes, une theatre, magasins et beaucoup de chocolatiers.

Lots of the buildings have a famous symbol on them. Many of you will recognise it if you go to the scouts. Can you spot it?
It's called "Fleur de Lis" which means flower of the Lily". It is used on the Coats of Arms for Lille as well as in many other French towns. Most of the people in my group are women... However, there is also another little person who is taking part on our journey and having a lovely time. He is called Albert. he brought his teacher with him to France and likes to go everywhere with the group - even the cafes!  Albert specially  likes "Chocolate Chaud" . (What do you think that is?)

Tomorrow we are going to be singing lots of  french songs in our workshops (think I should be able to manage that !) Then we will be preparing to go into a school where we have to help teach an English lesson. Did you know that french children have about 3 hours per week of English in Primary school? That would be like you having 3 hours per week of French. Would you like that?

Well I must sign off now as I have to get ready to meet my group for the evening activity... I'm quite exhausted as there's not much time to sit and relax. But at least it means my french should be much better by the time I come back.

I hope your Harvest Service went well and am sorry to have missed it. I'm sure the parents are in for a treat on Thursday.

Lots of love to everyone - especially year 6 - a bientot!

Monday 15th October

Yesterday I made it safely to Lille and I enjoyed the journey very much. Before getting on the Eurostar in London, I met with another teacher from Garway school and so we travelled together to Lille. We had to "check-in" and then wait just like you do at an airport. The Eurostar was bigger than normal. Once on board the guard gave announcements over the speakers in three languages, (I wonder can you work out what the three languages were?). In no time at all, we were speeding away (faster than I had ever experienced), simply whizzing through the rest of the English countryside and into the tunnel which took us below the English Channel. I hardly noticed the time go by as I chatted to my new friend. We arrived in Lille, put forward our watches to one hour ahead and walked to our hotel.

Would you believe that as soon as we arrived, we had to go to a room to start activities for speaking french with the other members of the group? (They had all arrived much earlier in the day). I sat next to a French lady who spoke so quickly I could not quite understand her. However she soon realised it was important to slow her speaking down. I told her about my family, my cat, my rabbits, and of course all about St.Marys. By this time it was 8pm and so we were all taken for a lovely meal at a local restaurant. Can you work out what I had to eat...  Des frites et poulet... mmmm

Today I felt like I was a pupil again. I have been in a french lesson all day, revising how to say lots of different things, playing games and singing in french. It was hard work but lots of fun. Now I know how you all feel when you are learning french, I was quite nervous at first (especially in front of real french people!) but everyone is very helpful and says "tres bien" as often as possible!

After a long day, we took a bus to get back to the hostel. The town has two different parts, one old and one modern. I prefer the old part which has beatiful architecture, quaint shops and cobbled streets. The modern part is quite plain and dull. There are cafes and restauraunts all over the place, people drinking coffee and eating on the tables outside no matter what the weather is like. I noticed there are plenty of cyclists here. The photo shows a row of red bikes (like we have in London) but here it seems they are FREE to use - how wonderful! My friends and I eventually got off our bus and then had a bit of a walk to the hostel. We only had a very small map and we tried hard not to get lost, especially as it began to rain and our map was becoming more and more soggy and difficult to read. Thankfully my new contact lenses did the trick and we made it back for 6.00pm.  So now that I've updated my blog...  I'm off for a nice cup of tea and a well earned rest!

Bon nuit - A demain

Friday 12th October
Hello everyone. I'm feeling so excited about my special trip next week.I am going to the French city of Lille to find out more about how schools can help you to learn new languages. I hope to get you all communicating with children in France through our VLE, so I'm going to show the children there how to use it. (Children, as I know you are all amazing on the computer, I wonder can you  please remind your teachers how to log on because they keep forgetting!)

First and foremost though, I am in the throws of sorting out my journey (passport... money... tickets...etc) It all begins with an exciting journey using a mode of transport I've never used before - not just any old train but the remarkable EUROSTAR. In fact, all of the journey is done by train.- starting at 10:00am from Hereford. I take a train to Newport. Then change at Newport for another train to London Paddington. After that an underground tube train to St.Pancras. Next hop on the Eurostar and travel under the English Channel to France. Arrive at the city of Lille by 6.30pm and finally take a ten minute walk to the hotel.  

Well that's the plan anyway. I hope I get there on time and my trains don't run late. (I hate being late for anything!). I'll continue my blog after the journey to let you know how it all went. Have you ever been on the Eurostar? Why not tell me about it here in Mrs Skyrme's POSTBOX?

Bye for now xx.
(Year 6 - please be good while I'm away!)

La fin du stage!

A quick catch up on Friday’s activities as there was no time to ‘faire le blog’ yesterday!

Back in the university building where we started last Monday, we spent the first part of the morning discussing ways of using Art both to stimulate language activities and to develop intercultural awareness. 

After break we split into small groups to develop an activity of our own to choice to use back in our schools and to share with everyone else, using the techniques and ideas we had absorbed throughout the course.

Lunch in the university ‘Bistrot’ set us up nicely for the afternoon sharing session. Many different ideas were shared, Albert featured in his very own presentation, and our group produced a little unit of work based around a lovely French children’s story book entitled ‘Les monstres n’existent pas!’

At the end of the afternoon course evaluations were filled in and certificates presented, before we departed to make ourselves ready for ‘le repas final!’

Friday night in Lille proved to be a lively occasion with restaurants full to overflowing!

A great way to end notre expérience inoubliable!

Merci à tous!

Alison

Annick and her story book

I feel it is time that Annick made her presence known!

Today, we spent the morning looking at songs and other resources that we could use in our lessons - the faces are French artists whose music may be appropriate for our pupils. We also compared what we have seen in the French education system to our own experiences.

This afternoon, we spent time preparing a unit plan to share with the other delegates in small groups - Annick is reading the book we based our activity on. We now all have a wide resource base to download when we get home from the activities across the week. This course has been a fantastic experience and we have all learned so much, both about language and language learning. I hope we can maintain some contact and continue to share ideas and practice our French.

Un Acceuil Vraiment Génial!

Wow!
What a day!
We set off for the Metro, in the rain, on a drab grey morning, not quite sure what to expect from a visit to an unknown French school and have just returned having spent the most fantastic day at the Ensemble Scolaire Saint Adrien!

We were welcomed into the school most warmly, with a petit déjeuner français and introductions to the key staff of this educational establishment which caters for children from the age of 8-18, more than 2,500 if I remember rightly!

(Even Albert  cheered up once he was offerred 'un chocolat chaud!')

Following this kind welcome we visited classes both to run some English activities with the French pupils and to observe them at work in their classrooms. A real chance to compare the differences in culture. No uniforms, a long lunchtime and a very long school day were the biggest differences we immediately became aware of.

Following a lovely lunch in the canteen area we were shown around the entire complex in small groups, accompanied by some delightful guides from Year 9 who conducted their interesting tours in excellent English! A chance for them to practise their skills, which were most impressive. They were a real credit to their school.

Everyone we met was SO WELCOMING!

Albert avec ses nouveaux amis!

Many of us are looking for links to enable our pupils back home to correspond with French pupils of a similar age, and many useful contacts were made today which we all hope will extend well into the future!
 (Albert has his correpsondants already!)

A massive MERCI to everyone we met for giving us such a fantastic experience!

et je laisse les derniers mots à un des directeurs.....

 Alison