Kasper, der Bandit und die Million

Children from our primary feeder schools were treated to a German Kaspertheater. Courtesy of the Goethe Institute, 18 classes of German learners from years 3 to 6 were invited to watch the Punch and Judy style show at Lakeside primary school. The hero Kasper and his friend Gretel visit grandmother in London only to find her kidnapped by Bandit B! Only with the help of his enthusiastic audience can he get his hands on the million pound ransom.

Here are some comments by the children:
"I found it wunderbar! It was also really funny!" James

"I like it when they went on the Max Factor." Aran

"I found the show very funny and it made me giggle. I enjoyed the part where we got to sing the songs." Megan

"I loved the puppet show because there were some unexpected scenes and the audience could join in! Danke schön Goethe Institute!" Hassan

"It was the most amazing experience. I have learnt a lot of new German words. Also it was a little bit weird." Harriet

"I thought it would be rubbish, but it was really good and I would love to see it again!" Jessica

"It was amazing! I laughed my head off. The bit when he grabs her made me jump! A lot better than any other puppet show! Thanks for an amazing time." Ella

"I thought it was fun and interesting. I had no trouble understanding the German" Isobel

"I think the puppet show was FANTASTISCH! Anyone who enjoys German and likes to join in with fun activities, this is the perfect show for you! Very funny and entertaining." Hannah

"Kasper was a very interactive and fun show to watch. Kasper, der Bandit und die Million is definitely a 5 star show" Lara

"Your play was...WUNDERBAR! I liked it and it helped me learn more German! Danke!"  Mide

Year 7 Carol Concert 19.12.13

In December 2013, Year 7 students rose to the challenge of learning/practising a German or French Christmas carol (depending on which language they currently study) for 3 weeks whilst juggling end-of-term assessments. Not only that, they also performed it in the School Hall in front of the rest of their peers and a selected audience of lucky Year 6 Ravenscote pupils.

Fantastic work by a primary pupil!

Here is an astonishing piece of work by a girl in year 4 at Ravenscote (one of our feeder primary schools).
Diya Rashid has been learning French since the beginning of year 3.
Recently, her French teacher Madame Butler has taught the class how using a dictionary can enable you to say anything and be really creative with a foreign language.
Diya has clearly understood the message. Not only did she produce stunning work in French, but she also went home and wrote an entire bed time story in German - a language she has not learned at all yet! - only with the help of a dictionary (and her little sister Zara, who gave some inspirations for the story).
Although her text on 'Goldillocks and the three cats' is not 100 per cent accurate, Diya knew that she had to change infinitive verb forms into the past tense or ing form, how to choose the correct translation for the context and managed to communicate the whole story really well! In addition to that, she has illustrated it beautifully!  
What a star and what a promising SUPER LINGUIST!
Well done to Diya! -and to Madame Butler for inspiring her!
Fantastique! Fantastisch! 

German weather reports in primary feeder school

Staying at our feeder school Ravenscote, here is some fantastic work produced by Frau Mahler's year 6 classes. Having learned to talk about the weather, pupils had to give a weather report in German.
Here are some particularly fine examples. Aren't they wunderbar?

Here are Dan and Ben: 

This is Abi: 

And Lena:   

European Day of Languages

Remember the European Day of Languages Competition?
Here are some winning entries from our feeder junior school Ravenscote.
The overall winner of years 3 to 6 was Joshua Mills in 5B with two poems about languages!

Further winners were:

Alice Green in Year 3

Neve San Emeterio and Diya Rashid in Year 4

Pia Boeber, Izzy Wragg, Abi Gumbrell, Hannah Richardson, Millie Bates, Mya Chumber and Mia Hewitt in Year 5

Naomi Whiteland and Lucy Andrews in Year 6

Congratulations to the all the winners -who have received some sweets and goodies, and especially to fabulous 5B, who have shown particular enthusiasm for this task with 47 entries (winning them some German sweets)!

Märchenwelten - Fairy Tale Day for Feeder Primary Children

43 children from Ravenscote (one of Tomlinscote's main feeder primary schools) have enjoyed a day of fairy tales and German. As this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of the fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers, the Goethe Institut have created Märchenwelten, an exhibition and range of events to explore these stories, relate them to today and learn German in the process.

Through Tomlinscote's Pasch-Partnership, the primary children were invited to travel to London to visit the exhibition and to listen to the story teller Katharina Ritter perform  die Bremer Stadtmusikanten (The town musicians of Bremen). The pupils watched film clips of stories like Rapunzel, der Froschkönig (the frog prince), Aschenputtel (Cinderella) and Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) and completed various tasks around the plots and characters.

While they had to cope with a lot of German, the young linguists hugely enjoyed all the activities.
They also made a Schatztruhe (a treasure chest), practiced their speaking skills ordering 'Limonade' and tasted giant Brezeln, kindly provided as an additional treat!

Vielen Dank for a fantastic experience!

For more information from the Goethe Institut about fairy tales, read the original German texts or listen to the stories being told in German, follow this link: http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/mlg/mad/gri/deindex.htm

Play a fairy tale game by following this link: You can choose the characters' roles - does the brave prince save the innocent maiden kidnapped by the evil stepmother and protected by the nasty dragon? Or does the brave princess rescue the dragon....? Have a look! You need to know a little German and it helps if you know some fairy tales, but it's weird and good fun!
http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/mlg/mud/spi/de9829464.htm

with Katharina Ritter, the story teller from Germany

in the princess section of the exhibition!

at the exhibition

solving puzzles and finding clues at the exhibition

the big bad wolf!! 

some Schatztruhen

doing tasks at the work shop

decorating the treasure chests

Enjoying the Brezeln!

Alles klar!! A great day out!

Fantastic work in our feeder school

Pupils in one of our primary feeders (the outstanding Ravenscote Junior School) have produced lovely work about their families and made their teacher Frau Mahler very proud.

A special mention goes to Khadeejah Hullemuth, Georgina Wickens, Kiran Sahota, Daniel Key-Nagy, Zaima Hossain, Jessica Thomas, Lara Bass, Georgina Wither who won lovely prizes, but a huge number of other year 6 kids have also produced excellent work, putting superb effort in their writing and presention and showing off their creativity and linguistic skills after not even two years of German.

Wunderbar!!

For privacy reasons, we only display work without photos, but they give you a very good idea of the amazing quality of work, for example by Tabitha Minson, Moses Olweny, Adriana Wilk and Andrew Milne.  Super Arbeit!

Letters to Santa (primary German)

Year 6 children at our feeder primary school Ravenscote have been writing wish list letters to the Weihnachtsmann (the 'Christmas Man' as Santa is known in Germany) in their German lessons.

Here are some particularly nice examples: