|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bristol Regional Support Group |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Regular sessions are held at different venues
around Bristol, Date: 04/10/2007 After a warm up involving Chinese Whispers in Spanish and French, the teachers - from Bristol, Bath and North Somerset - discussed the new QCA units. After an introduction by Sally Benwell outlining issues such as progression, organisation and mixed age groups, teachers grouped in pairs to look at and discuss aspects of different units; such as suitability for the age group and alternative activities. Feedback was lively and highly useful for all involved - everyone appreciated getting a different 'angle' and new ideas from others. Date: 13/11/2007 Teachers from North Somerset and Bath & North-East Somerset met early to prepare for Christmas on 13th November. Led by Sally Benwell of Bristol and Justine Gregory of North Somerset, they started off with a jigsaw puzzle of Christmas greetings around the world; followed by a variety of activities such as Christmas finger rhymes in Spanish, making a snowman, songs and games in French and a Christmas Traditions pass the parcel game. We enjoyed seeing Sarah Morrison's Christmas boxes, a wonderful stimulus for all sorts of language fun. Teachers shared their own experience and ideas as well as selecting a new activity to try out in school. A CD Rom was given out with many PowerPoints, games, advent calendars and other things to use. Date: 27/11/2007 On 27th November teachers from the three authorities had an opportunity to meet up and share Christmas ideas. The session followed that held in North Somerset a couple of weeks previously and looked at different areas: plays, rhymes and songs; traditions; games and activities; useful websites. Whilst some examples of each were given, attendees also had the opportunity to suggest their own tried and tested ideas and to think and talk about what would work well in their own setting. The CD Rom given to each attendee was very popular and should provide plenty of activities for at least this year! Date: 07/02/2008 Unfortunately this session was cancelled due to illness of Justine Gregory, Adviser from North Somerset who was co-presenting. Teachers were invited to attend one of the other sessions, in Bristol or Bath & North-East Somerset. Date: 04/03/2008 A small number of teachers attended this session during a week when many schools were holding parents' evenings. Held in the ICT suite of the Training Centre, teachers were able to discuss their favourite sites and explore a long list of website opportunities for developing different areas such as: adult language development; games and activities online for children; stories and presentations; authentic websites for cultural information and 'official' websites for information and documentation. Teachers also discussed the advantages of setting up a blogging website and had fun watching some of the films such as Pigloo and Pat and Stanley. Date: 11/03/2008 As above Date: 30/04/2008 An interesting presentation from Trevor Davies of the International Learning and Research Centre on 'The Languages Bridge' led many of the group to enquire about using these materials as a transition unit or as 'extra interest' in the days of post-SATs Y6! Most of the attendees were subject leaders and felt that these materials underlined the need for more joined up thinking between Literacy and MFL subject leaders; with their emphasis on looking at language generically rather than at one in particular. Date: 03/07/2008 Maggie Steel of Southville Primary presented a lively and enthusiastic session on using music and song - indeed, combining the music curriculum with the MFL curriculum. Everyone enjoyed trying out ideas and singing in a round, with Chantal explaining things from a music co-ordinator's point of view as well as as a native speaker! Maggie illustrated her ideas with examples from French songs and gave everyone lots of samples to try out - but made the point that we could apply the same principles to any language. Particularly interesting was the idea of using phonic practice to help warm up the voice before singing. We also explored the ideas of children learning new words through association with rhythm or tune. All this at the end of a long day - our local mini-conference! Maggie will be repeating the session in our neighbouring authorities next year.
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Coordinator: Sally Benwell, Bristol Education Centre, Sheridan Road, Horfield, Bristol, BS7 0PU