Employment

In this project, Breadalbane Academy’s S3 Spanish class worked with Glen Lyon Coffee Roastery, an independent business located in Aberfeldy. Their vision to “put people and the environment before profit” is one which chimed with the school and their priorities, and made them an ideal partner to work with. Glen Lyon Roastery and Breadalbane Academy also run a Barista Coffee Academy by partnership agreement. 

The class visited the roastery where they were shown the roastery and packing process, followed by a talk on practical uses of languages and communication skills in the workplace. Learners then had the chance to try their barista skills in the roastery café.  

As a follow-up task, the café owner created a mock job advert that the pupils could apply for. Each pupil wrote a CV in Spanish and recorded a voice message in Spanish as their application for the post. These were submitted to the owner, who generously donated a prize for the best application. Pupils were motivated by the fact that they visited the premises, found out how languages can enhance their employability skills and that their work would be judged by the owner of this business. 

Feedback from pupils was very positive, with pupils inspired to complete this task to the very best of their ability. Pupils have expressed that they are much more likely to continue studying a language into S4 based on this experience and the school is now looking for other, similar projects that could be rolled out across other year groups and languages in future sessions. 

This is an outstanding example of a Bronze submission from Breadalbane Academy. Congratulations!  

The verification panel found much to commend in this project. They noted the excellent choice of a relevant and engaging local partner; coffee is a vital but sometimes less-celebrated part of Scotland’s food and drink industry. High levels of learner engagement are obvious and the input from the partner is clearly a significant factor in this. The panel noted that the focus on sustainability as well as language is inspiring, and the fact that the language use is truly authentic is also highly commendable. All in all this is an excellent, engaging and well thought-out project – well done!  

As this project currently covers one year group and one language, it is eligible for Bronze level and we are delighted to award this. It has strong potential to develop into a Silver or Gold level project, and we would love to see where the planned developments lead!