Article Details

Article Details

East Ayrshire (November 2015 meeting)

Author: Sonia Perez Coughlan

An overview of East Ayrshire's current work to implement the 1+2 approach.

All primary schools in East Ayrshire will be implementing French as L2, except for two schools which have chosen German

A primary language framework was designed last year to cover P1-P7 and the P1 planner has been implemented in all schools this year. A modelling session was available on request, and twilight sessions were delivered to introduce P1 language. This Primary Language Learning (PLL) course for French consists of 12 twilight sessions spread across the year. All centres have received resources to help them to deliver French in their schools.

In addition, PE and Circle Time CLPL has taken place to reinforce activities and games for embedded language. Probationer teachers are benefiting from CLPL courses to embed the French language confidently.

The Goethe-Institut is involved in Train the Trainer in one of our clusters, providing a German course for beginners.

All secondary schools in East Ayrshire will be implementing French as L2, except for Cumnock Academy where L2 will be German
1+1 approach to language learning in early years centres

A framework was designed specifically for early years with basic topics and resources, games and songs to be used in the daily routine with young children. Early years centres are focusing only on French. The language coordinators for early years attend a twilight every three weeks until the beginning of June in order to learn a new topic and to share with their colleagues back at their centres.

L3 in East Ayrshire primary schools

The current focus in our primary schools is L2 and therefore there is not yet an official start date to implement the second language in primary schools. Schools are currently introducing it at their own pace and depth.

Many schools have chosen Spanish as L3. Taster sessions are taking place in many schools from P4-P7 although a few schools requested the taster session from P1. In addition, we are running a Spanish pilot, International Education with New Farm Primary, embedding Spanish in the classroom and an introduction to International Education through British Council. Another pilot, Spanish for art (Picasso), is running in a P7 class to introduce Spanish as IDL for four weeks, and in January a further pilot in Spanish (IDL) will start in two schools through STEM.

Some primary teachers are attending a five week block every fortnight in Spanish for beginners. Intermediate Spanish will be delivered from March. Gaelic, Mandarin, German, Scots and BSL are the other languages in demand for L3.

L3 in East Ayrshire secondary schools

A selection of languages have been chosen for L3 across East Ayrshire in accordance with staffing, tradition or interest. Languages are Spanish, Gaelic, Mandarin, French and German, operating either as a language rotation programme for all the pupils, as an elective for one period per week for a 10 week block, as study blocks or as a taster course.

Many clusters across the authority are starting to meet and get together to design a transition plan in order to improve the language teaching across sectors but with a particular focus on transition between P7 and S1. There are many avenues we are exploring in order to make languages more accessible for both primary and secondary schools. Some of these are still in the planning stages and we would hope to be able to give you some positive information on our projects in the next SCILT update.

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