Institution: The English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College

Context
The English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College is an expanding 11-18 mixed voluntary-aided Catholic High School which has an excellent reputation throughout the area. There are 1590 students on roll including over 300 in the Sixth Form. The school is oversubscribed every year. There are currently 105 members of the teaching staff and 50 members of the support staff. The school serves the entire Catholic community of Hartlepool and their catchment area encompasses the whole of Hartlepool LA. As a result they have a genuinely comprehensive intake which is one of the great strengths of the school.

Key objectives
To enhance enjoyment and motivation by inviting thirty pupils at the school to participate in a three-day cross-curricular enterprise and languages project. The target group was made up of pupils from across the ability range who have opted to take French at GCSE. French and German are totally optional subjects at English Martyrs. Pupils were selected by their French teachers and were chosen because of ability in French, self-confidence, enthusiasm and more.

How the event was organised
The Enterprise in Any Language programme was designed initially as part of a Future Entrepreneurs programme which was funded by One North East. The idea was to combine the areas of languages and enterprise education in a fun, creative and challenging project which would enhance both their knowledge of language and their motivation. The project involved students from both Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 2.

In the Key Stage 4 project, students participate in a 3-day programme (doc, 30KB) during which they visit a regional business to see the importance of languages in the workplace and to set the scene for the project. The director of the company is on hand to talk to the students about the benefits of further study in languages. Students are then introduced to a design brief – their task is to support the learning of primary French by creating a game and associated lesson plan to teach a theme from the Key Stage 2 French Programme of Study. Students are given inputs on target language, presentation skills and more. In the final afternoon of the project, students present their product and company to a panel of judges and the winners are chosen. Download the KS4 teacher notes (doc, 140KB) plus PowerPoint (ppt, 209KB) and KS4 pupil workbook (doc, 323KB).

In the Key Stage 2 project (doc, 33KB), pupils from a local feeder primary school visit the school to participate in 2 days of activities designed to enhance their French language skills and their enterprise skills, for example numeracy and teamwork.

On the first day, KS4 pupils act as Enterprise Champions and play their games with KS2 groups. This has worked well on two levels – KS2 pupils enjoy learning new words and having them presented in a lively way by young people, and secondly this boosts the self-confidence of KS4 students tremendously.

During the second day of activities, KS2 pupils enjoy a variety of activities designed to enhance their linguistic and cultural awareness, including making ‘orange pressé’, learning about food in Vietnam and planning a journey from Hartlepool to Paris. The KS4 pupils act as peer mentors and deliver these activities after some training. In the afternoon of the second day, KS2 pupils are given the challenge of ‘buying’ items from a French market (using plastic Euros and plastic food!) from the KS4 market traders. This is tremendously successful and enjoyable for all involved. Download the KS2 teacher notes (doc, 120KB) and pupil workbook (doc, 312KB).   
    
Results/effect
Alex: 'It’s a good idea to get people involved with the project. It develops the French skills of the primary pupils and us, because we have to think about the content of the games too.'

For the KS4 pupils, the experience is very rewarding. They practise their French in a controlled environment but are able to take more risks with it than they do in the MFL classroom. They are able to use the experience in GCSE to write coursework about their best day at school. It has increased motivation amongst learners and provided them with a positive extra-curricular experience, which MFL often finds difficult to provide without a trip abroad. Combining the language with enterprise skills also means that they have more ideas for future personal statements and job applications.

For the KS2 pupils, they thoroughly enjoy the experience, motivation is high and they make real progress over the two days.

Teachers from across the local authority are pleased that the project highlights languages as something useful in which students can learn transferable skills. Resources which have been produced have been welcomed by primary colleagues. 

The project has raised the profile of languages and of the school as English Martyrs was the first to pioneer the project. It has definitely improved transition and helped boost relationships between English Martyrs and its feeder primary schools.

Future developments
The school is currently investigating the Foreign Language Leader Award and hopes that students who participate in the project in the future might be able to gain this.

The project has been taken forward already by a group of sixth-form students who, seeing the success of the project last year, decided to create some French games themselves as part of the Young Enterprise Company programme, and they have reached the National Finals with their products. This is another boost to the profile of languages in the school.

Also available to download is a PowerPoint presentation produced by the sixth form team (ppt, 1.98MB)

Author: Lesley Welsh, Languages AST, English Martyrs School