Shropshire and Staffordshire Regional Support Group

Coordinator: Ceri Bedford, Grove School, Newcastle Road, Market Drayton, Shropshire TF9 1HF
Tel: 01630 650027 Fax: 01630 650029
Email: staffcbedford@grove.biblio.net

Regular sessions are held around Shropshire and Staffordshire.

West Midlands Regional Consultative Group is a networking and discussion group hosted by West Midlands Regional Support Groups.

Regional Support Group sessions

Session 1: Thursday 19 October 2006
Title: Language of the Month
Speaker: Colin Whitehead
Venue: Grove International, Grove School, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 1HF

For our first session of this academic year we welcomed Colin Whitehead, the Headteacher of Newbury Park Primary School in Redbridge.  Colin spoke with great enthusiasm about integrating into the curriculum the community languages spoken by his pupils.  Colleagues were able to see how the use of ICT enabled non-specialist teachers to deliver short langauge lessons in which pupils learn the same key words each month in a different language ranging from Albanian to Urdu.  Colin demonstrated the resources created by his school and how they can be adapted by other schools to make their own pupils the stars of the lessons.  All the resources created by Newbury Park can be downloaded from their website.  The session closed with Colin answering a number of questions related to the use of ICT, integrating languages into the curriculum and the overall effects of the programme on the school.

Session 2: Wednesday 22 November 2006
Title: Christmas Ideas
Speaker(s): Ceri Bedford
Venue: Grove International, Grove School

Our second session was led by Ceri Bedford, Head of Languages at Grove School and was attended by 24 colleagues who spent a very enjoyable hour and a half learning about the various resources available for Christmas. The session looked at teaching Christmas vocabulary, teaching other language through Christmas themes, cultural lessons and the use of pantomimes, stories and carols. Colleagues tried their hand at a reading comprehension which involved drawing the Christmas pictured described, prizes were handed out for the first to finish and the best picture. The session was very successful and thoroughly enjoyed by all those present.

Session 3: Wednesday 7 February 2007
Title: Assessment and Resources
Speaker(s): David Forth
Venue: Learning Resource Centre, Grove School, Market Drayton
Time:  4.30-6.30pm

For our 3rd session we welcomed David Forth from Asset Languages who gave us an interesting insight into the use of Asset Languages and how it works with the DfES Languages Ladder. David presented a number of ideas on how the assessments can be carried out and showed how they can be used by a wide range of schools and also after school clubs. The flexibility of Asset Languages was clearly demonstrated to those in attendance and David answered a number of questions about the use of Asset Languages both for teacher assessment and as an external assessment. We also welcomed Jane Massey from LCP who brought along a range of their Primary MFL resources to display along with resources from other publishers.

Session 4: Wednesday 27th June 2007
Title: ICT in the Primary Classroom - Storytelling
Speaker(s): Chris Peake
Venue: Grove International, Grove School, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 1 HF
Time: 16.30-18.30pm

For our fourth meeting of the year we were delighted to welcome Chris Peak who led a very interesting session on storytelling using ICT. Chris brought along a wide range of resources for participants to view, including big books and finger puppets. Chris demonstrated how to use three stories in the primary classroom, Handa’s Surprise, Ten in a Bed and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. As well asdemonstrating how she would use the stories she also showed participants a variety of ways of exploiting the text and additional activities. The session was thoroughly enjoyed by all, many of whom took away electronic copies of the handouts and suggested activities.

Session 5: Thursday 5th July 2007
Title: Teaching Spanish in Primary Schools (An introduction to the language and methodology)
Speaker(s): TBC
Venue: Grove International, Grove School, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 1 HF
Time: 4.30-6.30pm

NACELL Regional Support Groups are funded by the DfES and co-ordinated by CILT, the National Centre for Languages in support of the National Languages Strategy.