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Small Schools Primary Languages Conference

The small schools conference for the 2006/7 academic year was held on 30 th October to coincide with a possible school INSET day. The rationale for the conference was to bring together whole staffs from small schools and explore practical ways to develop the teaching of foreign languages. An exciting additional aspect to the conference was the possibility for one staff member from each school to travel to France on the same day to visit the Hardelot Centre and see the facilities on offer for school trips. In the event, 90 delegates attended the conference and 35 people went to Hardelot. Many of the schools did manage to send their whole staff so there was a real mix of Headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants from across the whole County. Throughout the day there were stands to browse with representatives from various MFL publishers and displays of MFL resources in the main hall.

Delegates were welcomed by the Small Schools Adviser. She handed over to Maureen Smith, the Kent Teacher Adviser for Primary Languages who gave a short presentation putting the new PNS KS2 Framework for languages in context. She explained the five strands of the framework and emphasised the importance of the “intercultural understanding” strand and its place in cross-curricular working. Maureen then went on to reassure delegates that there would be plenty of training and support for teachers, so that they would be ready to implement the framework in 2010 and that schools did not necessarily need to have expert linguists to deliver the teaching of MFL.

Christina Skarbek’s presentation was entitled “Covering the oracy and literacy strands of the framework in 60 minutes.” It was a fast-paced session where, an initially sceptical audience was taught to say, read and spell some Polish phrases. Christina used a wide range of techniques including modelling, repetition, singing, acting and memory games with the delegates. By the end of the session, she had indeed covered the strands, but the point was made that a huge amount of teaching and learning could come from a very small amount of language.

For the rest of the day, there were 3 sets of workshop sessions targeted at particular school age groups: FS/KS1, lower KS2 and upper KS2.

Each group had a music session run by Helen Macgregor, the Kent Teacher Adviser for Primary Music.

FS/KS1 also had a session on “Fun with languages in early years” and “Using a familiar story”

LKS2 had sessions on “Using Numeracy starters” and “Cookery and French”

UKS2 had sessions on “Developing the intercultural understanding strand through ICT” and “Using a familiar story”

These sessions were mainly run bylocal teachers who had bravely agreed to share their good practice. The workshops were all of a high standard and the delegates agreed that they were very useful for giving practical ideas that could easily transfer to the classroom.

Closing the conference, the Small School Adviser thanked all the delegates for their willingness to participate in sessions. She also thanked the presenters, especially Maureen Smith and Rajmund Brent who had done so much to support the planning for the conference.

Launch of NCSL Leading Small Schools Programme in Kent

12 Small Schools in Kent have applied to take part in The Leading Small Primary Schools Programme which is running from March to July 2007. The programme has been designed to foster learning between similar schools, both within and across LAs, and to encourage supportive relationships and sustainable networks between headteachers. The programme will be facilitated by 4 local Headteachers: Cliff Collins from Goodnestone CEP, Sarah Waters from Petham CEP, Stella Sudds from Trottiscliffe CEP and Linda Stanford from Worth Primary and will involve a twilight introductory meeting, a two day residential at NCSL, a series of structured learning visits and an evaluation meeting.

Keeping Busy Small School Headteachers Informed Meeting Dates

The purpose of these meetings is to help Headteachers who have a teaching role keep up to date with curriculum developments by disseminating the information from all the Advisory Service ITN subject briefings in one afternoon meeting. I attend all the briefings, collect handouts and make notes of key information to share with Headteachers at the meeting. Samples of all the handouts are set out at the meeting and Headteachers are invited to select the ones they wish to have copied.

There are now four groups for Headteacher briefings running. The next meetings are as follows:

Ashford and Shepway: to be confirmed

Rural Swale: Monday 5 th February p.m.

Dover and Deal: to be confirmed

Sevenoaks: Friday 2nd March p.m.

If you would like to attend one of these meetings or inquire about setting up a briefing in your area, please contact me at Melanie.knowles@kent.gov.uk