Exciting French project

Over the course of three separate sessions, Year 9 students from Tomlinscote and Collingwood College are preparing alternative endings/scenes for different films, in French.

This enables them to stretch their imagination and their skills in the language as well as practise and improve their pronunciation and intonation, with the ultimate aim to record their scenes in the filming studio at Tomlinscote.

Thank you to Year 12 Collingwood and Tomlinscote students for their support.

Look at the Year 9 pupils hard at work:

 

Watch this space for the upcoming videos...

Student of the Month - June 2013: Winner of Oxford German Competition

This month's Star Student is

Isobel Leigh 
for her amazing success in the Oxford German Network Olympiad! 
The theme was Grimm's fairy tales (as it had been the 200th anniversary of their publication this year), and Isobel chose to make a short film about Schneewittchen (Snow white).

We are very proud to announce that she is the WINNER in the film category for Year 10 -11, having beaten entrants from all over the UK. Isobel was invited to attend a ceremony at the Bodleian Library in Oxford a few days ago to celebrate her success!

What a wonderful achievement!


I asked Isobel to write a bit about the whole experience in German:

a screen shot from the film

"Frau Brown hat mir über diesen Wettbewerb erzählt und ich habe gefühlt, dass es toll wäre, es vor meinen Prüfungen zu machen. Ich habe das Märchen “Schneewittchen” gewählt, weil ich gedacht habe, dass es das interessantste ist und anders als der Disney film, deshalb habe ich mehr über dieses Märchen gelernt. Wir konnten entscheiden, welches Projekt wir machen wollten. Ich habe mich für einen Film entschieden, denn ich habe früher kurze Filme mit meinen Freunden gemacht und ich habe gedacht, dass es eine Herausforderung wäre. 

Zuerst habe ich das Drehbuch geschrieben und dafür habe ich die originale Geschichte und die englische Geschichte benutzt. Danach habe ich mit meinen Freunden aus Collingwood die Filme gemacht – sie war Schneewittchen. Für die sieben Zwerge habe ich Schattenmarionetten gemacht und meine Eltern haben mir geholfen, die zu filmen. Dann habe ich alles geschnitten, was eine lange Zeit gedauert hat. Am Ende habe ich den Film zu die Oxford German Network geschickt. 

Sie haben mir in einer Email gesagt, dass ich gewonnnen habe und ich war sehr glücklich. Am Dienstag bin ich mit meiner Mutter und meinem Bruder nach Oxford gegangen und im Bodleian Bibliothek gab es eine Zeremonie für die Gewinner. David Cornwell (John le Carré) hat den Gewinnern die Preise, die Bücher waren, überreicht und deswegen war das auch toll."

Isobel Leigh

John le Carré at the Bodleian Library in Oxford

The proud winners posing with John le Carré

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

International School Award

We are pleased to announce that Tomlinscote has been accredited for a further three years with the International School Award, acknowledging the school’s strong focus on the international dimension in the curriculum.

Mrs. Danny Brown, Director of the Specialist Language College and International Co-ordinator, said; "All the staff, students and governors at Tomlinscote are delighted and proud to have received this award, which recognises the outstanding international work being done at Tomlinscote, where the constant aim of staff and students from all curriculum areas is to enable every member of the school community, irrespective of the career pathways he or she may choose, to make a maximum contribution as a global citizen in a 21st Century global society."  

The international activites at Tomlinscote do not only include the MFL exchanges and trips to France, Spain and Germany, but also various international joint ventures organised by other departments, such as a bilingual science project with the Robert-Bosch-Gymnasium near Stuttgart and a music exchange with a school near Munich. 

Watch this space for more information on the various ongoing international activities!

Transition Project KS2-3

All year 7 classes have taken part in a KS2 -3 transition project in which children had to produce a video about their school. Building on language learned in primary school and extending it with new structues and vocabulary, pupils had to write a script in French or German and film it using flipcams or the webcams on their laptops. Each class then chose the best videos and these were shown to other classes on the 23 of November.

Here is the fabulous result of one of the groups!

They are Funmi, Hannah, Caroline, Charlotte, Lucy L, Lucy M all in 7Y. Magnifique!

(It might take a while for the video to load - please be patient -it is worth the wait!)