Institution: Peacehaven Community School

‘I think I might even go into teaching now!’ (Year 10 student)

As an end of year project, Year 10 learners at Peacehaven Community School planned and taught French lessons to Year 6 pupils in partner primary schools. Preparation included the experience of being taught a new language themselves (Russian) and using Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) to analyse and reflect upon teaching and learning.

The context
Peacehaven Community School (PCS) is a mixed comprehensive school on the south coast of England. The majority of its pupils come from three local primary schools: Hoddern, Meridian and Telscombe Cliffs. In preparation for the statutory entitlement of languages at KS2, PCS has joined with the primary schools in employing a single specialist languages teacher to deliver French at both KS2 and KS3. This has helped with transition, in addition to developing a level of consistency.

The background to the project
Collaboration between the four schools made them keen to extend their links with one another. The project initially gained momentum after a group of Year 8 students recorded a Christmas song, ‘Vive le vent’, for the primary pupils. They were delighted to hear siblings, neighbours and friends singing to them and it proved a good motivational tool. Timetable changes in May allowed a window of eight lessons, for a project in which ten students would teach a lesson to Key Stage 2 learners in the partner primary schools. Three to five lessons were taught at each of the primary schools.

PLTS as a springboard for discussing teaching and learning
The department already used PLTS in languages teaching, translated into the target language, as part of a whole school policy. Josie Turner, head of languages, writes:

‘Now, using PLTS as the spring board, we looked at what was needed to be an effective classroom practitioner, and discussed how the different PLTS lend themselves to teaching and learning in languages. I then split the class into two groups, making half the class my learners and half the class lesson observers. The observers were given a blank lesson plan to fill in as tasks were introduced, and told to add any notes at all concerning student engagement and lesson delivery. I told them nothing except to apply their thinking skills. The learners were to simply apply themselves to my tasks as they would in any lesson. The difference today was that the lesson would be in Russian, a language none of them had met before’.

What the Year 10 students learned
‘Initially the learners panicked at having to face something new, which they quickly realised was how their Key Stage 2 learners would feel. The observers picked up on the important aspects of teaching that helped to motivate the learners: praise; differentiation of tasks; language reinforcement by repetition; body language and mime; variation of tasks; the use of the target language with lots of visual support; and the motivating factor of games to enhance learning. They also commented on how objectives were stated then met by the end of the lesson. The learners were able to talk about how their confidence and self-esteem were raised when they were praised, how they felt able to participate orally when being smiled at and how they felt they met their objectives because the tasks were short and snappy so they didn’t get bored. I told them none of this – they worked it out for themselves, using PLTS.”

Putting it into practice
The students then applied all this knowledge. They worked in groups of five, and, having decided on a topic to teach, using the insights gained from the Russian lesson to help them plan their lesson for Key Stage 2 learners.  After three planning lessons, with students sharing their ideas with one another and the whole class, they began to create their own resources. They performed the starts of their lessons to each other. Peer assessment was very important and learners and teachers often swapped roles. They moved on to trying out their games ideas, repetition chants and target language use with each other. After having prepared the lessons thoroughly, they then began to discuss issues of behaviour management and transition of tasks. They were applying knowledge of younger siblings and possible low concentration spans, so they worked on strategies for asking for quiet, for distributing materials as part of the lesson, and for giving clear instructions.

The outcome
‘Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching some of our students demonstrate how very talented they are. I watched a small group of our Year 10 students deliver a French lesson to a mixed age Year 4/5 class at Meridian Primary School. The quality of their resources, their teaching methodology and classroom management were exceptional.’  Nicky Bassett – Deputy Head

‘Our Year 6 children responded very positively to the lesson and have been asking for more! I was impressed with all the PCS students. One young man seems to be a natural at speaking to a class full of children - my job could be in danger! They were all excellent ambassadors for PCS and themselves’. Lawrence Nickolls Year 5/6 teacher Hoddern Junior School

‘It was fun and we played games’. ..’I learnt all the colours and I also learnt a French song to remember it!’...’My sister does French and I really want to learn more stuff about French!’ ... ‘Can you come again?’ ... ‘Can you come every week?’ ... ‘That was wicked!’ ...  ‘We’ll pay you to come back!’ The Year 6 learners

Was it worth doing?
‘This project was trialled with one class of Year 10 GCSE students as they were coming to the end of the year. We felt that although eight lessons of GCSE language learning had been taken from the syllabus, the knock-on effect in terms of motivation, esteem building and fun was well worth it; we can now catch up the lessons missed with renewed enthusiasm. It provided a great opportunity for different students to work together in different situations. It has also raised the profile of languages amongst the Key Stage 4 students as feedback from the project has been so positive.’ Josie Turner, Head of Languages

What the Year 10 students said
‘I was excited but nervous ... It gave me so much confidence in my French ... I’m quite shy but I really enjoyed doing it and feel more confident in myself ... It was amazing they listened to us ... Their brains are like sponges! ... It was a really cool experience ... Their French was great they picked it up so quickly ... I thought we’d be patronizing them but it was the right level ... It was great -  can we do it again next term? ... I wish I’d done it at an early age ...It was nice how they showed their appreciation ... I think I might even go into teaching now!’

What they felt they had learned
‘We learnt how to learn ... My organisational skills have really improved ... You learn to explain yourself clearer, because they mirror everything you say ... It refreshed our memories – it was useful to re-do Year 7 stuff.’

Future Developments
The school has recently moved to introducing the new school year in June rather than September. They felt it would be ideal to start the new GCSE students with such a project in June 2010 to encourage them to think about their learning.

Author: Josie Turner. Peacehaven Community School