CLIL ‘Science Across the World’ project Huish Episcopi School

Context

Huish Episcopi is a mixed 11-16 comprehensive community college. It has about 1200 students on roll and has the status of a specialist Science college. 50% to 70% of Key Stage 4 students take languages.

A Comenius project of ‘Science Across the World’ is currently in planning at Huish Episcopi School. The project, due to run during the academic year of 2007-08, involves a partner exchange school in Spain. Students on both sides of the exchange will be given the opportunity for some content and language integrated learning in science.

How the programme is organised

A top set of Y7 students coming from Huish Episcopi is expected to undertake CLIL Science through the medium of Spanish, which they will experience over a period of two days based in Spain. The same applies to the Spanish students involved who will in return spend two days in the UK and take part in CLIL Science through the medium of English alongside their British peers.

Huish Episcopi has had previous experience in the practice of CLIL. Last year, a cohort of Y8 students participated in a CLIL scheme from the ‘Science Across the World’ project in French. The project was delivered over a 12 week course and amounted to a total of 24 hours of CLIL Science lessons.

This time, however, the project requires teachers coming from two different countries to collaborate in implementing the scheme. It is proving insightful in terms of sharing good teaching practice.

Results/effect

From previous experience, it is anticipated that the initiative, based on a reciprocal exchange, will help deepen students' understanding of common European themes, for instance related to the environment. Additionally, there is much scope for expanding the language exposure of students in a cross-curricular way. This in turn is likely to enhance their enthusiasm for learning foreign languages.

Resources

The materials and activities being designed for this new project already cover a broad range of resources including paper based and ICT materials and also the likely use of drama and realia.

Future plans

In future years, the school plans to sustain and develop such projects.

For information about how to participate in a Science Across the World project, visit the website.