Languages
for All
West Wight Nursery/After
School and Training Centre
St Saviour's RC Primary School
Summers Lane
Totland Bay
Isle of Wight PO39 0HQ
Person in charge of project: Sylvia Richards, Chair of the After School & Training Centre and Pat Williams, Supervisor of the After School & Training Centre
This project is run at a children's nursery with crèche, after school, holiday and breakfast club facilities, which also houses a training centre for unemployed and single parents. The project involves the teaching of French to children from the age of four upward and teaching French and Spanish to adults. There is a keen emphasis on the fun aspects of learning, with encouragement for people of all ages to understand and enjoy learning a different language, whilst gaining an insight into another European country's culture and customs. The project provides language learning opportunities to pupils from ten schools in the area, and aims to make language learning more accessible to adults in a rural community where the nearest FE College is twelve miles away.
Judges' comments
This is another project whose key benefit is in widening access to language
learning to different age groups. The Isle of Wight is inevitably distanced
to some extent from mainland ideas and initiatives and West Wight is the
most rural and parochial community on the island. The project is vital
in an area which lacks other such opportunities. The judges were particularly
impressed with the emphasis on enjoyment in language learning, and on
understanding cultural differences.
