Employment

Toryglen Primary School developed a highly effective and inspiring partnership with the local Big Bear Bakery, which employs a number of bilingual and multinational staff. As the school itself a large number of bilingual students, this partner was chosen as it would present them, and all other students, with great role-models and encourage continual engagement with foreign language learning. 

The school and bakery collaborated to involve students in meaningful discussions about the importance of foreign languages for employability. They were shown a presentation of different career options which are all made possible by speaking a second language. This included careers such as social media influencer, lawyer and professional athlete. This highlighted to the students that their career aspirations could be enhanced by being multi-lingual. Following on from this the students wrote letters to Big Bear Bakery detailing their interest in how the company valued languages in the workplace. The students asked if the bakery could create a short presentation and provide some working examples of foreign languages in the workplace. 

Big Bear Bakery responded extremely positively, compiling an excellent video to encourage students to consider the importance of foreign languages as a subject choice for their future career options and job prospects. They also provided some practical French phrases used in a bakery setting. 

As a direct result of Big Bear Baker’s input, learners in the school immediately became engaged with developing their French language skills. Every student learned several different bakery items and various adjectives to describe them in French thanks to the French employees at BBB. This allowed them to relate relevant learning experiences and skills development to the labour market.  

Once they had become confident with the new language, they were able to create a video advertisement that Big Bear Bakery could use to promote and grow their business within the French community. In addition, students created posters translating menu items from English to French, which were displayed in the bakery.

Finally, students were able to put everything they had learned about languages and employability into practice when the school had a French themed café, where students took on various roles to develop their understanding of the various responsibilities placed on employees in a real-life context. This simulated an environment where foreign languages are necessary to create a successful business environment.

This submission from Toryglen Primary School and Big Bear Bakery has so much to commend it, and the verification team members were all so impressed by the concept and execution of the whole project. 

A highlight of the project has to be the strong partnership between the school and the bakery. The school made excellent use of local knowledge in identifying the bakery as an ideal partner, and it was clearly a collaborative project from the outset. Both partners were involved throughout the planning process, and Big Bear Bakery is engaged and pro-active within the partnership. All of the verification team highlighted their video, with it being described as a creative and inspired component. This in turn sparked creativity in the pupils involved, leading to excellent outputs from them in turn.

The strong message from the bakery on the importance and value placed on languages in the workplace was very well communicated, and exemplified by the French employee.

The range of evidence supplied was of an extremely high quality. There is clear demonstration of really positive impact on staff and pupil engagement with languages and of improvement in the place of languages in the curriculum. This was all so encouraging to see.

The verification team felt that this submission, and the project itself, were outstanding. As the project involves one class, we felt that it meets the criteria for a BRONZE Scottish Languages Employability Award and is an excellent example of a project at that level. We also felt that it is very close to meeting the criteria for a Silver award and would really encourage Toryglen Primary School to build on the strong partnership that they have established with Big Bear Bakery involving more classes in order to achieve Silver or even Gold! Please do not hesitate to get in touch if we can support with this in any way.

We would also like to warmly commend Big Bear Bakery for their role; this is one of the best examples that we have seen of a business partner in this award and we are sending them a certificate to acknowledge their achievement.

This is an excellent example of what can be achieved in a collaborative project – congratulations Toryglen Primary School!