Employment

We work with businesses and schools to build capacity in language and employability skills.

Larkhall Academy

School: Larkhall Academy
Project: Spanish Visitors to Glasgow Fort
Level: Bronze
Date: June 2023

Through pupil voting, Larkhall Academy selected the nearby Glasgow Fort for a collaboration with S3 Spanish learners. Pupils created a welcome guide for Spanish speaking tourists to the Glasgow Fort.

While working on this project learners had the opportunity to develop their own language skills and use of the language in the written form. Learners had the opportunity to use their language skills in a different context to what they normally do within the classroom, using dictionary skills confidently and developing their translation skills. There were three core activities:

Task 1 – Translation of the key information that the Glasgow Fort wanted to be included in the welcome pack.

Task 2 – Pupils worked together to draw up a rough design of what to include within their handbook, how to lay it out and then check these ideas with the coordinator. 

Task 3 – Pupils split into small groups and created the handbook in different formats including a poster, a leaflet and a website. After these were created pupils voted on which format worked best and then worked together to finalise the design of that format. This was the website.

Taking part in this award has allowed pupils to witness first-hand the impact of having a language skill and how this will benefit them in the future within the world of work. 

The finalised website been shared with the Glasgow Fort, and it will be linked on the school website for current and future students to see and display what skills language learning can offer. 

This submission from Larkhall Academy is a really strong example of a robust, well set-up project with a real integration of learner voice. Learners were involved at all stages of the project and it feels truly collaborative; an excellent example of partnership working. The verification team were very impressed by the website that was created and felt that this is a project with rich potential for expansion, perhaps to include other year groups, languages and businesses within the Fort. The cascading of experience to younger pupils is also a great way to continue the conversation in school around employability and languages, and we commend the school for this.

We are delighted to award this submission a BRONZE Scottish Languages Employability Award as it fully meets all of the criteria of this level. Congratulations!

University of Strathclyde Education Scotland British Council Scotland The Scottish Government
SCILT - Scotlands National centre for Languages