Student of the Month - February 2015

Here are this month's specially selected hard-working and excellent star students! 

Well done to all of you!

A Daniel	Sophie Tarr-9H	Perseverance and sustained effort
A Metcalfe	Ellen McCarthy-9Q	Outstanding progress and commitment
A Chandra	Jayson Munro-9R	Excellent focus and effort in French
B Merle	Marcus Dainton-11M	Constantly working hard with enthusiasm and interest
E Christian	Nathan Kingham-8G	Excellent focus and participation in lessons
H Ryan	Michael Brindley-9G	Consistently demonstrating the skills required to be an outstanding linguist
H Quintana	Tom Cooper -9P	Outstanding speaking presentation
K Intxaurbe Ortiz	Zaria Zaman-8Y	Excellent progress and positive attitude to learning
L Allen	Grace Bonner-7R	Continued hard work and effort in German
L Sparkes	Jack Bowes-11G	Vastly improved grade on a past IGCSE paper
P Rollason	Amelia Bell-8M	Excellent independent work in Japanese outside of lessons
R Savochkin	Andrew King-Carly - 8Q	Hard work and excellent progress
S Chapman	Tom Lara-10G	Hard work and enthusiasm in Chinese

         

Student of the Month - January 2015

Student of the Month is back! 

Languages teachers have each nominated an outstanding student who has shown particular effort or excellent enthusiasm in the last month! 
Well done to all these fabulous linguists!

Imaan Saeed in 7P for excellent work and contributions

Luke Oldfield in 8Y for consistent hard work and excellent class participation

Callum Stennett in 9M for very hard work and enthusiasm

Alana Scott in 9K for excellent effort in Japanese mocks

Yara Mansour in 9Q for excellent effort and improved behaviour

Rachael Grey in 10X for consistent outstanding effort and achievement

Jonathan Mann in 10H for very good effort and progress

Rebecca Hill in 10Q for consistent hard work in Chinese

Emily James in 11Q for very hard work to improve her German  

Daniel Leemans in 11R for very good effort

Marcus Dainton in 11M for good progress

Navneet Brar in 11M for consistent hard work and dedication

Year 8 Christmas lessons 2014

O Tannenbaum saw a revamp at the end of term with Frau Allen's Year 8 classes writing their own verse to the song....Tis the season to be creative! Frohe Weihnachten🎄

Celebrating MFL success

The end of the Academic Year saw the celebration of the amazing success of Tomlinscote's finest linguists. 

A selection of students from Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 were nominated by their MFL teachers for the consistently detailed, complex, and accurate work they produced over the months. Their efforts were acknowledged with the award of a badge (in the style of those issued by the PE department) for the language(s) where they have been shining over the course of the year and we hope that they will wear them proudly on their jumpers as from September.

A fine bunch of students!

In the meantime, some well-deserved rest is undoubtedly needed by our MFL ambassadors after so much effort. Well done!

Year 8 Spanish - El sistema solar

For this last half term, Year 8 Spanish students have been working on a CLIL project, learning about the solar system in Spanish. The final task of the year has been to use all the Spanish learnt
this year including information about planets and describe life as an alien!

Here are a few fantastic examples of work from students in 8M.

Scroll down to see the whole powerpoints!

Japanese and Chinese Intensive Courses

Around 90 Year 8 students (and some Year 9s) have been working hard during their Japanese and Chinese intensive courses. For two weeks, they discarded their normal timetable in order to attend all-day sessions in their foreign language, culminating in assessments at the end. Probably more fun than the tests were the several practical workshops they attended:

The Chinese learners had wok cookery lesson and and were treated to a trip to Wellington College to experience the school's new Chinese Centre, where they watched paper cutting and Taichi fan dancing demonstrations and could join in a fan dance routine.

Fan dancing practice at Wellington College

The Japanese students could try their hands at making sushi and learned about origami, producing lovely creatures by folding paper. Aided by visitors from Japan 21, an organisation promoting Japanese language and culture, they could also find out about Kimonos and try them on themselves. 

Both groups had instruction in martial arts by visiting experts!

The Japanese teachers and the samurai experts

Derek from Wutan UK teaching the Chinese students

Luckily, everyone survived the sword fighting

Beautiful origami swans

Making sushi - Don't get fish fingers...

No, you can't take them home - but they look very fetching....

Year 8 Trip to London: 3 Museums and Famous Germans

On Thursday 20 June, Miss Allen organised, with the help of Frau Soylucicek from the Goethe Institut and Mrs Elliott at Tomlinscote, a trip for 101 Year 8 German learners to London.  
We were also joined by 8 students from Kings International and their teacher Frau Foltzer.  

The task for the day was to visit three of the most famous museums in London, the Victoria and Albert, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum in order to answer quiz questions in German.  The content of the questions varied, with some relating to famous Germans and others relating to Science/Art in German.  The students were quite exhausted after the three one-hour visits, but seemed to have a very positive impression of the day.  

Mrs Christian organised some inter-group competitions for coach 2 and awarded some prizes, but Frau Soylucicek will also be looking at the answer booklets and awarding some prizes for good achievement. 

in front of the V&A

inside the Natural History Museum

We would like to thank Frau Soylucicek for all of her time and effort in writing the questions and to Herr Edwards, Herr Hartland, Frau Christian, Frau Fatelli, Frau Bauer and Frau Evans for taking the time to accompany the trip.

Student of the Month - May 2013

Student of the Month for May 2013 is a nomination by Madame Tsang:

Jamie Prior in 8M has stood out for working hard, having perseverance and enthusiasm in lessons.
Formidable!

Olympian Visit at Tomlinscote - MFL-PE Handball Project part 2

On the 22nd of May we had the great honour of having an Olympic athlete at Tomlinscote. 

Dan McMillan has represented Great Britain in handball at the 2012 games in London and has come to talk about his experience and to help MFL and PE staff with the year 8 handball project.

Dan gave a inspirational presentation about how he got involved in professional sports -he played American Football for several years, before following the call for athletes to try out handball in the run-up to the Olympic Games. While the sport was virtually unknown here, Team GB had a free ticket as host nation and wanted to put up a good show, so they recruited promising athletes from other sports in an X-Factor style competition. Dan was chosen out of over 4000 applicants and he went on to Denmark and Germany to hone his skills in countries where handball is a hugely popular sport.

He talked of the difficulties in chasing his dream, but said the 'blood, sweat and tears' were all worth it when he walked into the Olympic stadium to the roar of thousands of people and represented his country doing a sport he loved. As a bonus, he shared the Olympic village with Jessica Ennis and Mo Farrah, rubbed shoulders with Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins over breakfast and had coffee with Team GB football players. Oh, and Usain Bolt likes his chicken nuggets, apparently!

Year 8s were fascinated by these stories and hopefully inspired to work hard to achieve their dreams. And they might check their purses for that special 50p coin with the handball player on it (It's Dan!)

After the assembly for year 8, he helped with the practical side of the cross-curricular PE - MFL project and coached pupils in tactics and team work. He also shared his handball knowledge with PE staff and Btec students, as well posing for fotos and giving autographs.

Year 8s thoroughly enjoyed the day: They practiced their language skills, met an inspiring sportsman and learned the wonderful fast paced game of handball. They were fantastic at it, as well, really picking up skills and tactics, and several enjoyed the game so much they called for a handball club to open at Tomlinscote. Hoepfully the legacy of this project and Dan's visit will continue!

After assembly, Dan answered questions from the handball groups

Dan posing with some of his fans

giving autographs

Handball Project for Year 8s

Around 80 year 8 students who had shown great potential in their MFL lessons as well in PE have had the opportunity to take part in a special two day cross-curricular project of handball. In both France and Germany handball is the second most popular team sport (after football) and a big part of the PE curriculum for both boys and girls, mainly because it's sheer fun - as our handball novice were about to find out.

On the first day, they had a four lessons of introduction to handball in French or German. Madame Christian and Madame Fatelli, Frau Bauer and Frau Savochkin taught the groups parts of the court, positions, instructions, penalties and body parts involved in playing the game and showed them videos of the professionals from France (the current Olympic champions) and Germany (who have one of the strongest handball league in the world).

designing a kit and labelling the court and positions

Practising their vocabulary with matching and memory games

some pre-practice in the classroom -with a very soft ball

On the second day, they were coached in throwing, dribbling, passing and team play by the year 12 budding football coaches under the watchful eye of their teacher Mr Harris (whose language skills are excellent!) and Ms Mensah (who was learning fast). The French lot were encouraged to use their language by Mr Daniel, while Frau Mahler tried to get the German learners to shout Zurück! and Gib ab! (although most shouted Kebab!). And of course, our Olympian guest Dan MacMillan (see other blog entry) coached the lucky groups on Wednesday in tactics and answered questions by the Btec team about coaching and refereeing.

Dan explaining the tactics

demonstrating attack and defence

A fantastic jump shot

trying out the trick shot they had seen in the handball league videos

The practice culminated in a tournament of matches to show off their newly learned skills.They played really well and Dan the Olympics handball player spotted some very talented players!
Everyone had a wonderful two days of languages and sports and hopes that this project will be repeated in the future!  
Do leave a comment below if you were involved in the project!

die Gewinner von den deutschen Mannschaften