Wicklewood and Bawburgh Schools

GPP Projects in two Small Country Primaries in Norfolk

Wicklewood and Bawburgh, with 135 and 85 pupils respectively, offer French to all KS2 pupils aged from 7 to 11.

Their French specialist, Joan Dickie, works for three days a week at Wicklewood, sharing a year 3/4 class with a colleague, covering the literacy, humanities and art/design areas of the curriculum.

She visits Bawburgh twice a week to take French with all but the youngest children and also to teach art/design to the year 5/6. The long-term plan is to incorporate French into these lessons through the language of instructions, materials, colour and art appreciation!

Both schools lay a strong emphasis on the international aspects of the curriculum, Wicklewood co-ordinating and Bawburgh participating in separate Comenius projects.

Both schools share the major stumbling block of all small schools trying to offer progression in any curriculum area - vertically-grouped classes! The challenge of adequately providing progression in a language to a class where only half the pupils change each year is a reality in many country areas.

It is this area of linguistic progression that the Norfolk study wishes to specialise in. Joan has drawn up the working outlines of a plan that progresses grammatically every two years. Vocabulary is introduced on a two-year cycle and is then re-visited and extended over the next two years. Teaching resources and continuity and transfer to secondary school are areas that the study also particularly wishes to address.

What's Happening | Spring 2000 Update