At St Austins pupils and teachers have been working together to produce interactive DVDs and films to support language learning in school and at home. The films have been developed as revision tools so that pupils can practise at home either accessing them on DVD or over the Internet. The children are actively involved in producing films to support their own learning and even encourage their parents to learn some Spanish phrases. The resources are then uploaded to TeacherTube where they are shared by teachers throughout the world.

Pupils start learning Spanish as soon as they arrive in Reception class, with songs and counting games, and it is embedded throughout the curriculum in KS1 and 2 involving ICT as an integral part but also music and drama and other curriculum areas such as Science and Maths.

The result is ‘normalised’ use Spanish and ICT and pupils are enthusiastic about Spanish, very competent users of the technology, and very secure in their knowledge of simple Spanish by Year 5. This project also receives the Eurotalk Primary Education Languages Prize.

Language(s): Spanish

St. Austins is part of the Liverpool City Councils Centre of Excellence project for primary modern languages. The school was named ‘Colegio Español del Año’ by the Spanish Embassy in 2006.