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

Science and French!

7H and 7R students have been looking at what happens when an ice cube melts in their science lessons. They then wrote up their findings in French!
(You can click on the images to enlarge them - this will open in a new window)

Ellen Leany 7H





Esme Parsons 7H


Anna Hayward 7R


Rian McCawley


Jamie O'Connor 7H

French and History

A group of 30 year 9 students have been studying History through the medium of French. The 8 week module on ‘La France sous l’occupation’ is part of the CLIL project (Content and Language Integrated Learning).

Students had to sum up the consequences of the armistice signed between France and Germany on the 22nd June 1940 and the meeting between Hitler and the French leader, Maréchal Pétain on the 24th October 1940.

Robin Geddes

Richard Evans

Elisia Cox

Helen Day

Joanna Davidson

Ben Hayward

Rosanna Tabeart

Cassie Fraser

The German army on the Champs Elysées

Science and French

7P had a Science lesson where they were encouraged to write up their findings in French. Some of the work is shown below. Their Science teacher is not a French specialist, so we think that they have all done a fabulous job!

Megan Cole

Bethany Reed

Charlotte

Saad Ahmad