Year 7 French trip

We have arrived at Futuroscope and we are really pleased to discover that the hotel where we are staying has been refurbished. We've taken some photos to show you the front of the hotel and one of the rooms!

So far so good...

On the ferry, all the kids are excited. The French coast is in view. Here we come Germany!

Euro 2012 - Update

Spain have now shown why they are the favourites in this competition: With Fernando Torres finally finding his true form and scoring twice, they thrashed Ireland 4-0. Olé!
As group mates Italy only managed a draw against Croatia, the Spaniards are almost through to the next round.

Germany convinced with beautiful football in the first half: 'Super'Mario Gomez scored twice, turning like a torero (showing his Spanish father's heritance). German fans were singing 'Auf Wiedersehen' already, but
after Van Persie's goal they had to worry not to receive an equaliser towards the end. Still, it remained 2-1 and Germany are leading the group comfortably with two victories. Hurra!

England started very well with Carroll's goal, but defended sloppily after the break leading to Sweden scoring twice. The decision to bring on Theo Walcott changed the game: His look of puzzled elation after hitting the target through five Swedish defenders was great! Later his cross allowed Welbeck to score with his heel and all was done and dusted. What an exciting match!

France could improve on their performance against England and beat host nation Ukraine 2-0. Les Bleus have all to play for in their last match against Sweden, who will be going home anyway. England just need one little point from the last match against Shevchenco's Ukraine to make it through....

Having seen the teams twice now, who do you think is going to win?

Free German Game App!

Learn and practise your German while playing a game on your computer or your phone!

Adventure German - The Mystery of Nebra combines following an exciting adventure and solving tricky puzzles with practising German use and understanding.
Players go on a trip to Germany with art expert Vincent Mirano to unravel the mystery of the 4000-year old Nebra Sky Disc.

screen shot from itunes

Devised by games experts in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, the game is recommended for KS4 and above.
The dialogues and puzzles are in German, but you can choose to have help in English.
You can download the app for iphone and ipad, for android phones or you can play it on your computer on the web!

Follow this link to watch a teaser video, find out more and to download the game for FREE!

http://www.goethe.de/lrn/duw/lad/enindex.htm

Viel Spaß mit dem Spiel!

Year 7 Trips 2012

Our year 7 pupils are getting VERY excited in anticipation of next week's trips to Germany and France....and frankly, so are the teachers! 
Watch this space for news of how they are getting on...

Let's hope for good weather!

...especially for the chair lift ride by the Rhine!

Importance of Languages

The latest CBI and Pearson report on 'what employers need from education and skills' has once again shown the importance of languages. The report published today is based on a survey of 542 organisations, who together employ around 1.6 million people:

"Languages will help open up new markets to UK companies
Operating effectively in a global economy relies on the right language skills, but the UK has the worst language proficiency in Europe, according to the Education & Employer Taskforce. An overwhelming 72% of businesses say they value foreign language skills, most importantly for building relations with overseas contacts (39%). The major European languages continue to be the most in demand, but language skills geared towards doing business in China and the Middle East feature prominently:

Just as well you can study the top four and number nine here at Tomlinscote!
Work hard in your MFL lessons - your skills will be appreciated by future employers!

For more information go to the cbi website

To read more on future changes to primary teaching have a look at this article in the Independent:

Compulsory language lessons planned for primary schools

Amongst other things, the article talks about introducing languages as a compulsory subject in primary schools. Of course, our main feeder schools are well prepared, as with a little help from their neighbouring Language College, they have been providing weekly German and/or French lessons to years 3 to 6 for many years now!

Euro 2012 - England

Bravo, England. Magnifique! With a brave disciplined effort the boys achieved a decent 1-1 draw against France, who -although highly praised and 'unbeaten for 21 matches' - maybe could have been beaten on this occasion....

Euro 2012

...and the Euro Cup 2012 is off to an interesting start. Spain, the favourites and reigning world champions only managed a 1-1 draw with Italy, while Germany came out of their first match against Portugal with a lucky 1-0 win. Let's see how England and France play tomorrow afternoon.....
MFL Tomlinscote hope you do support the teams whose languages you are learning (after England, of course).