French and Fun at King Arthur's for Primary School Guests

Invited by Miss Virginie Cadieu, who is the subject leader for French, I turned up to see what this special day for primary school pupils studying French was all about. Over two days some 160 pupils from some of the feeding primary schools spent a day at KA for a French Experience, helped along by an enthusiastic team of KA students. On arrival I was immediately assigned a guide in Mia Donovan who is 13 and in year 8. She took me around the school and explained what was going on.

JB: Tell me Mia, what are the activities the primary pupils will be involved in?

M: There are three, Handball in the gym, Box Making in the Library and Cooking in the Catering/Cooking room.

JB: And what is the point of the Handball?

M: They have to be able to react fast to games commands and instructions in French. They will also be discussing French sports and how they are different from what we do in England.

JB: And what about the cooking?

M: Miss Cadieu thought that would be good as it is fun and many of the pupils don't get a chance to do cooking in their schools. So they learnt the names of all the ingredients and what they were doing with them in French.
JB: What were they cooking?

M: Muffins. Not very French! But learning about ingredients and cooking instructions is all in French.

JB: And the boxes. What is that about?

M: They all make boxes out of card and then fill them with objects they like or things that they love in French, like berets and a whole pile of things. It could be a huge bridge like the one I saw when I visited France.

JB: I see you have teams of KA students working with the Primary pupils.

M: Yes. Eight of us from Year Eight doing the handball and eight of us doing the boxes, and I think there were eight Year Nine students helping with the cooking.

Here you see the handball groups in the gym lead by the KA students with blue tops.

And here you see the muffin making going on.

And here is Miss Cadieu and the teams in the library making their French boxes.

What struck me was the happy, enthusiastic atmosphere and the way the primary school pupils were working together with the older KA students. These French days really make learning fun and give the younger pupils a chance to see what the atmosphere and opportunities for learning and making new friends that KA provides.

And here is Mia again with her team of KA helpers.

Comment by Virginie Cadieu

This is the second year we have organised this event, and it has been a great success! It was a fun day for Year 5 and they had the opportunity to learn new skills and also improve their French. We were very lucky to have the support of Year 8 and Year 9 students, who were great ambassadors for the school. I hope that this is an event we can repeat next year. A very big thank you to the KA students who supported the younger students and also Mr Elloway, Mr Golden and Mrs Flynn who are always keen to take part and support the event.

Merci!!

Comments

Login to comment!