Employment

Danestone Primary School’s Languages Life and Ethos Languages Pupil Group pupils, consisting of pupils from P5/6, decided that they wanted to make links within the community in order to research the skills needed for lifelong learning and work. 

Learners first of all considered what they were learning at Danestone and how this relates to their future careers. They went on to research local companies and discussed how and why they might use languages in their jobs. They also wrote letters to companies telling them about their project and inviting them to work with the school. 

This led to the development of an exciting and innovative partnership with Chris Roberts, a project engineer with Subsea 7, an engineering company specializing in the offshore energy industry. This partnership included company participation in the school’s World of Work Week and meeting learners virtually to share how languages and related skills are used at Subsea 7. There was a strong element of shared language learning in the project; Chris introduced the young learners to Norwegian and Portuguese and they shared their learning of Mandarin and French with him.

Digital skills were also a key element of this project; learners developed a Google site of their findings and kept an online blog of all of their activities.

The Languages Life and Ethos group intends to build on this partnership and to extend it; they are currently working towards the Silver Scottish Languages and Employability Award by working across classes within the school, so watch this space to see how they get on!

This was an outstanding submission by Danestone PS Primary 5/6 Languages Life and Ethos Group. The whole verification team was enormously impressed by the range and quality of work which went in to this project, and by the outcomes of it. The school has developed a strong partnership with Subsea 7, and we loved the reciprocal nature of this, with both sides learning from each other. It is indeed a true partnership.

There are so many elements of this project which exemplify excellent practice. These include clear planning and organisation, excellent supporting evidence, inclusion of technology via Google sites, Jamboard etc, excellent examples of ‘sharing the learning’ with other classes, the pupil-led feel to the project, the celebration of different languages, the inclusion of the Diversity group, and so much more. 

We felt that this was an exemplary project and one which is a very worthy recipient of the Bronze award.