NEATHERD INTERNATIONAL NEWS N o 4: April 2009 Dear pupils, parents, carers and the wider Dere- ham community, Welcome to the fourth edition of our Specialist School newsletter which aims to give you an in- sight into some of our International and Language College activities which have taken place since December. Firstly, two of our Language teachers have suc- cessfully completed a National Leadership course for Middle Leaders and we hope that this will ben- efit them both in their future work at Neatherd and in their future careers. Once again we have offered all pupils the oppor- tunity to study two languages to GCSE level and are pleased that over 30 pupils have chosen to continue their French studies to AS Level. We are currently reviewing our second language provision with the aim of introducing other lan- guages into Key Stage 3 and we are debating the place of the current Fast Track provision in our fu- ture plans. Any changes will only take place from 2011 onwards and we hope to consult both pupils and parents in order to provide the best Language education possible enabling all pupils to fulfil their potential both in their GCSE Exams but also in the wider world as ‘global citizens’. Pupils have had the opportunity to sample differ- ent foods in the canteen this year with the last one concentrating on Polish food which Mandy Ashman, the canteen manager said was very suc- cessful. Two of our Flexible Learning Days have enabled the school as a whole to address the ‘Global Di- mensions’, an important part of the new national curriculum. As well as the many trips and activi- ties we offer pupils, we are eagerly awaiting the visit of staff and pupils from our Chinese partner school in the summer term. We have the most number of pupils ever coming with us to France during Curriculum Enhancement week – nearly 120! and we have a varied range of activities for pupils who are staying in school that week including African mask making, tie dye, storytelling, Japanese puppetry and learning Man- darin. The Sixth Form are also having a multicultural Day where they will also be learning Mandarin, Cuban dancing, African drumming and Brazilian martial arts. We are in the process of renewing our full Interna- tional Schools Award which is in recognition of all of our multicultural and international work both in and outside of the classroom. If you would like any more information about any of our activities or would like to feed back to us on anything that your child has particularly enjoyed or you feel that we could improve upon, then please do not hesitate to contact us at school. S. French (Assistant Head Teacher i/c Language College)
Transcript
NEATHERD INTERNATIONAL NEWS
No 4: April 2009Dear pupils, parents, carers and the wider Dere-ham community,
Welcome to the fourth edition of our Specialist School newsletter which aims to give you an in-sight into some of our International and Language College activities which have taken place since December. Firstly, two of our Language teachers have suc-cessfully completed a National Leadership course for Middle Leaders and we hope that this will ben-efit them both in their future work at Neatherd and in their future careers.
Once again we have offered all pupils the oppor-tunity to study two languages to GCSE level and are pleased that over 30 pupils have chosen to continue their French studies to AS Level.
We are currently reviewing our second language provision with the aim of introducing other lan-guages into Key Stage 3 and we are debating the place of the current Fast Track provision in our fu-ture plans. Any changes will only take place from 2011 onwards and we hope to consult both pupils and parents in order to provide the best Language education possible enabling all pupils to fulfil their potential both in their GCSE Exams but also in the
wider world as ‘global citizens’.
Pupils have had the opportunity to sample differ-ent foods in the canteen this year with the last one concentrating on Polish food which Mandy Ashman, the canteen manager said was very suc-cessful.
Two of our Flexible Learning Days have enabled the school as a whole to address the ‘Global Di-mensions’, an important part of the new national curriculum. As well as the many trips and activi-ties we offer pupils, we are eagerly awaiting the visit of staff and pupils from our Chinese partner school in the summer term.
We have the most number of pupils ever coming with us to France during Curriculum Enhancement week – nearly 120! and we have a varied range of activities for pupils who are staying in school that week including African mask making, tie dye, storytelling, Japanese puppetry and learning Man-darin.
The Sixth Form are also having a multicultural Day where they will also be learning Mandarin, Cuban dancing, African drumming and Brazilian martial arts.
We are in the process of renewing our full Interna-tional Schools Award which is in recognition of all of our multicultural and international work both in and outside of the classroom.
If you would like any more information about any of our activities or would like to feed back to us on anything that your child has particularly enjoyed or you feel that we could improve upon, then please do not hesitate to contact us at school.
S. French (Assistant Head Teacher i/c Language College)
Lille Trip
A Lille bit of NöelAt first, the idea of a cosy little day out under the twinkling fairy lights of Lille Christmas Market with some sensible, well-behaved Year 11s seemed rather appealing. However, having reached the end of my first very busy term at Neatherd, I found myself pulling into the frosty school car park at 11pm with cartoon-style match-sticks propping up my eyelids and more than a slight yearning to be in bed. Still, the indomitable Monsieur Mallet would surely take full control of things with full colour-coded efficiency and I would be able to curl up into a ball and wait for Mademoiselle French to bring me my morning croissant and chocolat chaud.
As it happened, I slept well enough to see the moon disappear to be replaced by an annoyingly dazzling sunrise somewhere in Kent. The Year 11s had been impeccably behaved so far, all going straight to sleep to
dream of their GCSE Oral Questions. None of them had nattered on long into the night and on and on into early hours of the morn-ing, keeping me awake, at all.
So, as the white cliffs of Dover glistened bril-liantly, it was onto the ferry for a 5.30 am grease-fest of a breakfast, which reminded us all of the dizzy heights of British cuisine at its best. La Belle France was only a mat-ter of minutes away and I quietly reflected on the works of Flaubert and Racine I had so enjoyed at university, whilst continuing to be amazed by Monsieur Mallet’s efficien-cy and Dr Treavett’s grande barbe.
Illness had been kept to a minimum on the ferry and it was now just a short hop to our destination, the beautiful and historic city of Lille, in the heart of northern France. Spirits were high and the sky could not have been more bleu if it had tried. Disembarking the coaches, we let our fine young representa-tives loose on the streets of Lille, in search of Christmas fayre and French conversation, whilst ‘les profs’ searched in vain for fresh croissants, having to make do with cof-fee, bread and jam instead. Having broken our second fast of the morning we had a relaxing mooch around the many and var-ied stalls of the Christmas market, stopping mainly at the hot mulled wine stall to sam-ple its delights. Mlle French seemed to dis-appear for a while but was recovered from
Lille Trip
the Magician’s stall, where she had become enthralled by the huge amount of tricks he seemed to have up his sleeve.
The rest of the morning was spent admiring the neo-classical or whatever it was archi-tecture and perusing the shelves of the gar-gantuan, but inordinately expensive book-shop, for which Lille is renowned. We had a successful and punctual reunion with our delightful students before heading to our next stop, Euro-Cité hypermarket.
Back onto the coaches and time to head home. There was definitely some flagging going on now, as we entered the ‘been awake for more than 24 hours’ zone, but we managed to get across the channel in one piece and were soon Dereham bound again. As we pulled back into the majes-tic grounds of Neatherd High, I reflected on what had been a lovely end to a great first term at school and a welcome and deserved treat for the Year 11 students, who had rep-resented themselves and the school in fine fashion. Thanks to all of them and all of the staff who helped make it a great trip. I look forward to organising the trip myself for them next year!
Monsieur Clennell (Prof de Français)
Normandy Trip
Abba and the Abbey for Year 9 in Normandy
It started inauspiciously enough: the Mamma Mia DVD punctuating the marathon coach journey through Southern England and Northern France. Nevertheless, it was all worth it. When we arrived at Chateau Beaumont, we were met with an outstanding range of activities, food and local sights, from escargot to brie; from the thrill of the zip-wire to the spiritual charm of Mont St Michel, a breath-taking Medieval abbey. As teachers, we were all impressed with how the pupils spoke to market traders in Laval, conversing in French like natives. Plus, as a special treat, Luke Shalom did a jig with a busker. Along the way we had teachers and pupils involved in a bizarre fancy dress catwalk (Kelvin Grimes – a cow, and Mr. Chapman – a moustachioed French mime artist, took the plaudits) and a Blind Date disaster for me. All in all, the students said it best:
“an amazing, fun-filled trip, worth every penny.” (Sarah Newey)“Loved it, should have been longer” (Lucy Merrett)“Vive la France!” (Tom Muller)
Normandy Trip
Flexible Learning Days
Fashion, Theatre, Dance, Music and Global Awareness – Swaffham Ecotech CentreThis was the theme for the whole of year 9 for the third Flexible Learning Day at Neatherd last term. It was organised by Mrs Hill and the Creative Arts Department and incorporated the strands of the New National Curriculum - Global Development and Sustainability.
All year 9 pupils had a great day out of school learning about life in third world countries and how peoples working condi-tions impact upon their daily lives. Various workshops were organised based around this theme of recycling and becoming more autonomous.
Pupils made their own clothes from recycled material and second hand pieces of cloth-ing. Some pupils designed facial art and ap-plied this.
Others made jewellery out of recycled ma-terials. All of these groups then worked to-gether to produce a fashion show in the af-ternoon.
One group learnt and performed a song about recycling whilst another group learnt to play a drum kit again made from recy-cled materials. Other groups produced short sketches about life in the factories in coun-tries which make clothes which they buy in the shops in this country and a final group performed a dance which they then put to the music. The day ended with a fashion
An opportunity to discuss Identity and Diversity
Flexible Learning Days
One of the best things about Flexible Learn-ing days is that is allows us to focus in detail on different learning objectives: ones you may not find usually in school lessons. One of these is Identity and Diversity and many pupils have spent one of the five Flexible Learning Days on this topic. But why do you need to learn about it?
Learning about identity and cultural diver-sity can help young people live and work together in communities, both in this coun-try and the wider world. It can also help you develop identity and sense of belong-ing which are fundamental to personal well-being and the achievements of a positive society. The UK already consists of a huge range of ethnicities, cultures, languages, beliefs and religions. These always change, so that people identify with different aspects of their past. Diversity also encompasses age, social class, regional differences, gen-der, sexual orientation, religious and non-religious beliefs and values.
It is important that as young people, you develop the ability to see yourselves as part of this diversity, and reflect on who you are and develop a strong sense of community. Hopefully you are starting to see how.
So far this year Year 10 have studied Nelson Mandela and the fall of Apartheid, Year 8 have explored Britishness and immigration, Year 9 studied Global Dimensions in Swaff-ham and Year 7 had a fantastic day run by the English Department which included a
workshop with the Nigerian poet, storyteller and musician Tony Ojo Ogogo.
N O’Brien(Flexible Learning Day Co-ordinator)
show and short theatre sketches performed by pupils. It was bril-liant!
Pupils excelled at all tasks and the Ecotech centre provided them with a perfect environment to produce and show their achieve-ments.
The GCSE photography group also attended and captured the day with photos which will be
used towards their GCSE course-work.
Staff from the Ecotech centre commented that they had never seen such a well behaved and purposeful group of pupils.
S.French
Food
International Food DayIt all started with One World Week back in 2007 which we celebrated as a school with different activities to raise the awareness of other cultures and languages around the globe.
The staff in the canteen served food from different countries during that week – some-thing different every day, from Spanish to African Day. Pupils and staff enjoyed this international food so much that we decided to continue and since then the MFL Depart-ment have organised monthly “Internation-al Food Days” in co-operation with canteen staff.
Mainly on Fridays, we have been around the world – from Russia to China, Mexico to the Caribbean, Poland and Sweden. Highlights were the Spanish Paellas and the Mexican Burrito, but the children were also happy to try Swiss Rösti or Hungarian Gulasch.
“This is an opportunity for the children to try something new and also a chance to learn about culinary eating habits in other countries”, says Mandy Ashman , Cook and Canteen Manager. The kids love the Inter-national Food Day, it is very popular.”
Culinary Delights still to come this year are all inspired by a “T-Language Scheme” – Thai, Turkish, Tunisian. The dates for these are 15/5, 5/6, 3/7 – Bon appétit, Guten Ap-petit, Buon appetito, Que aproveche!
If you would like to taste food from a par-ticular country or have got some great and easy recipe ideas, please speak to Marion Broughton in the MFL Department.
Marion Broughton
Food
Year 9 CookingYear 9 have been cooking as part of a homework last term. They made either Croque Monsieur, or Crêpes. Thank-you to parents for supporting us in this and for the lovely comments in their exercise books about their culinary expertise!
Chinese News
Chinese NewsThe whole school celebrated the Chinese New Year with both Form Time activities teaching pupils about the customs behind this important festival and also a Chinese song which 9JBA performed brilliantly.
Departments made the most of this op-portunity to do something a little different at the beginning of lessons for example in PSHE, pupils discussed the ‘one child per family’ rule, in Technology pupils made OX pin badges.
If you want to find out what Chinese Zo-diac sign you are, then just log onto the fol-lowing website and enter your birthday and date of birth:
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/chinesenewyear/
Chinese lessons are still taking place on Thursday after school for both pupils (3.45-4.45) and adults (5.00-6.00). As well as learning the language they have all had an origami lesson and tasted both bought and home made ‘authentic’ Chinese food and eaten it with chopsticks. We are hoping to continue these classes again next academic year – numbers permitting.
S. French
Sixth Form
Language SuccessCongratulations to six Year 12 students from Dereham Sixth Form College who recently completed a two-term language course us-ing Neatherd’s self-access language teach-ing software.
Since September, these students have at-tended self-directed language-learning ses-sions every Tuesday evening, during which they have set and reviewed their own learn-ing objectives and used a variety of media, including Eurotalk and Worldtalk as well as Linguascope and other Web-based pro-grammes, in order to learn the basics in a new language of their choice.
The students also had to research a cultural element connected with a country where their new language is spoken. The course culminated in students presenting the cul-tural information and some key Target-Lan-guage phrases to the rest of the group, be-fore receiving a Certificate of completion.
This year’s successful students were:
Selina Balkeesoon-Bhantoo (Italian)• Jessica Crisp (Italian)• Freya Elliott (Spanish)• Bridy Parsons (Italian)• Ryan Reader (German)• Josie Smith (German)•
Well done to you all!
If you will be studying at the Sixth Form College next year, why not join a Self-Ac-cess language study group from Septem-ber? Sessions run on Tuesdays from 3.30
to 4.30, are free of charge and offer you the opportunity to study any one of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Man-darin, Russian, Dutch, Japanese or even Af-rikaans!
Remember that we also offer a range of other language-learning opportunities at
the Sixth Form, including International Film Club on Wednesday evenings and a variety of trips and exchanges. Many of these, in-cluding Film Club, are open to non-linguists as well as to our language specialists! We look forward to seeing you there!
Mr J. MallettLanguage College Sixth Form Co-ordinator
Sixth Form
Trip to CologneWe were told in October that we were go-ing to have the chance to go to Germany, even better we were told it was going to be at Christmas time! We were all really excited and the first thing we thought was “who was going to bring the hair straighten-ers?” 3 months later suitcases were packed, everything full to the brim with clothes, hairdryers, make-up and hand luggage full of phones, iPods and food set for the long journey ahead.
Day 1It was our first day of the trip. After we’d eventually managed to wake up and get to the college for 4:00am, we drove to the air-port and caught our plane to Köln.
We then took the S-Bahn from the airport into the main part of Köln, where the main Weihnachtmarkt was. After the nice people from our hostel came and collected our bag-gage, we were let loose around the biggest Weihnachtmarkt (Christmas market) The Christmas market was breathtaking, it was hidden around the side of the Köln’s famous cathedral. There were various stalls selling everything from traditional Christmas dec-orations to chocolate and German sweets. We then happened to find ourselves on the (extremely long) main shopping street, for a spot of shopping in the huge German shops and department stores.
We all met up again, a few hours later and went and looked around the cathedral. The
cathedral was enormous, with cleverly, detailed stained-glass windows, delicately carved wooden beams and an intricately designed ceiling.
After our early start, we were all exhausted by this point, so we took the S-Bahn and went to our hostel for a few hours rest be-fore dinner (mmm Chinese).
Day 2Today we were up early for a tour of Co-logne. We took the train into the centre of Cologne where we met our guide; starting in the car park underneath the cathedral. There wasn’t much special about the cars but we were discovering the old Cathedral foundations and the secret passage ways. After weaving our way through various mar-kets and well-known Land marks of cologne we ended up outside a square, here stood two quirky statue men with shiny noses, the myth being that if you rub their noses you will return to Cologne. We then had free time to browse the markets and have lunch. The markets were stunning and certainly put you in the mood for Christmas.
We all met up in the afternoon outside house 4711. This was the place where the first co-logne was made. We opened the door and the fragrance hit you; almost too strong. Af-ter smelling the various perfumes we went outside to watch the famous chimes which
were on the roof of 4711.
However we couldn’t stick around for long as we had to catch the train to RTL tele-vision studios, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. After getting off at the wrong stop and a confusing walk back to the correct studio we waited for ‘Die Oliver Geissen show” to start. Unlike most people we couldn’t just sit there and have a rest, our teachers had set us some work to do involving interviewing German teenagers, so this was the perfect opportunity. Finally after what seemed like ages of waiting we were seated in the audience. Although the subject on this show was not at all interest-ing it was a great experience, especially the man at the beginning who was very funny telling what to do whilst they are filming. This wasn’t easy listening as all of it was in German!
When we came out it was very dark and cold so we found a lovely Italian restaurant. Be-fore we headed back to the hotel we had a walk along the river and saw all the beauti-ful lights across cologne lit up at night, what a lovely end to an eventful day.
Day 3It was our last day in Germany so every-one was up bright and early fighting for the bathroom and ready to make the most of our last day in Köln. Once we were ready we went downstairs for breakfast. After breakfast we were told that we were going to the famous Lindt Chocolate Museum and the thought in everyone’s minds was “mmm free chocolate.”
We took the S-Bahn (like a train) to the Chocolate Museum and once we arrived everyone got given their entrance passes, then we were let loose to explore the Mu-seum! When walking around we got to see the making of Lindt Chocolate and the His-tory and Origin of Chocolate.
Two hours later we felt like we were stand-ing in the middle of a Medieval Town but actually it was a Medieval Weihnachtmarkt (Christmas Market) When looking around there were amazing medieval jewellery, sheep’s wool gloves and hats, men playing
old fashion instruments, animals and lots more little trinkets.
After visiting the Weihnachtmarkt we had a couple of hour’s free time. So, we looked around the shops, went to an Italian res-taurant to have a bit to eat and wandered around the other Christmas Markets in the centre of Köln. Then to end the day we vis-ited a Christmas boat market and had lots of jewellery and souvenirs. Then we got on the Tram and headed for the airport.
Cases checked in, boarding passes ready, making our way to the departure lounge when suddenly we hear a call on the tannoy “the German Wings flight to London Stan-sted has been delayed,” naturally groans all round. Half an hour later we were ushered onto the bus to take us to the plane.15 min-utes later, no movement was made at all in the space of that time. Another call “we are very sorry to keep you waiting but you have to come off as the replacement plane is having technical difficulties.” Another half hour in the lounge and yet another call but this time to say our plane is finally ready. Just after 9pm we were back in England, 2 hours later back in Norfolk, although by then it was well past 11pm we were just all glad to be home! Glad were also our parents and friends as our bags were bursting with German Christmas goodies which we had brought back from our journey.
Selina Balkeesoon-Bhantoo, Claire Dustan, Freya Elliott and Fran Goodwins
Sixth Form
Sixth Form
Business Language ChampionsSpanish students from Dereham Sixth Form College spent the afternoon in Neatherd Li-brary with a few GCSE Spanish pupils and Angela Gifford who is the Manager and Owner of Able Care Homes.
She talked to them about her business and her project to set up a business in Spain. Pupils then researched various information that would be needed for this to happen. This is the second year that Neatherd has taken part in this Business Language Cham-pions initiative and we hope to establish fur-ther links with Businesses and our Language pupils in the future.
S.French
Language Leaders 2008-2009Sixth-formers studying languag-es at the Dereham Sixth Form College have for the first time this year been able to follow the Language Leaders Award pro-gramme. The programme, which is modelled on the 20-year old successful Sports Award, allows young people to develop their leadership and language skills by teaching small groups of younger pupils.
Sixth-formers have learned basic skills such as how to plan a suc-cessful language activity, how to motivate and communicate with a group, how to give clear instruc-tions for a language game etc, before being attached to a class at Neatherd High School and Northgate High School in Dere-ham and teaching small groups of pupils once a fortnight.
Students have really enjoyed the
experience, explaining that it helped develop their confidence in their leadership skills as well as their language skills. Although the language they were teaching was not as demanding as their sixth-form lessons, it still re-quired a certain amount of prep-aration so that they could answer questions from their pupils. Pu-pils also immensely enjoyed the creativity and enthusiasm of their sixth-former and always looked forward to working with them.
All in all a positive experience for the introduction of the course. The sixth-form students will be receiving the award from the awarding body in July and we an-ticipate a similar enthusiasm for the programme with next year’s students.
N. NeighbourFrench and Italian Teacher
In February the English and MFL departments, over 20 staff, had a joint training session run by Gary Trotter from Promethean. The aim of this was to enhance both departments’ use of the Interactive Whiteboards in the teaching of Grammar. An evaluation was conducted afterwards and all staff felt that it was a worthwhile training evening and will now hopefully be able to apply their new skills in order to make pupil learning more enjoyable and use these boards more efficiently for a specific purpose. It is hoped that these boards can now be used to further raise teaching standards in both of these important subjects and that further joint training can be arranged in the future.
S.French
Whiteboards Away
News
Bonjour!
When I first arrived in Norwich, (already 2 ½ years ago!), I started to work as a French assistant in a local school. I thought that it would be the best way for me to keep on improving my English after completing my degree in a Parisian University the previous June. But more than helping me to develop my second language, it showed me the way
forward for my future career! After one year as an assistant, I knew I wanted to go into teaching as I enjoyed it so much and took so much pride in teaching and sharing my own mother tongue and culture with young people.
I started my PGCE (teaching training) at
UEA last September and was appointed at Neatherd for my second placement. I was (and still am!) very happy about this choice as Neatherd offers a great variety of languages and opportunities for pupils to discover new countries and cultures as well as developing their linguistic skills with the help of a dedicated and skilled MFL department.
The MFL department as a whole has been very helpful in giving me excellent advice which has gradually contributed to improving my teaching skills.
I am now teaching several French and Spanish classes and I am still amazed to see pupils learning and achieving so much. Neatherd is showing me the way towards a brilliant teaching career and I hope to find a school at least as good as this one for my first post as a Foreign Languages teacher.
Merci et à bientôt,
Amandine Rouyer
Support and Training for Future MFL Teachers
News
Réalités Françaises
On 30th March, nine Year 12 AS French stu-dents from Dereham Sixth Form College, accompanied by Mrs Bennett, Mr Breakes and Mr Mallett, attended the Réalités Françaises one day student conference at the Cambridge Guildhall. An enjoyable day was had by all as students were treated to
a range of talks, debates and sketches in French on their AS topics – Media, Popular Culture, Healthy Living & Lifestyle and Fam-ily & Relationships – in order to give them a good grounding in the issues which they will be invited to discuss in their oral and essay exams.
We were all thoroughly impressed with how interesting and useful the event was and are intending to organise a repeat trip for next year’s AS students, as well as a visit to a student conference on the new A2 level topics, which schools will teach for the first time in September.
In the meantime, we wish all of our A Level MFL students the very best of luck for their exams this year!
Mr J. Mallett(Sixth Form Language Coordinator)
Spanish Oral PracticeBen who has joined us in Year 7 has previ-ously lived in Lanzarote. He has been meet-ing up with Dinalva in Year 11 who will be taking her GCSE in Spanish this year. Di-nalva speaks very good Spanish so whilst she has been helping Ben practise his spo-ken Spanish – in turn Ben has been helping Dinalva prepare for her GCSE Oral exam.
We are sure that with both of these pupils, we will stand a good chance at the yearly Wymondham foreign language speaking competition!
Year 10 saw the Queen!On the 23rd January Year 10 art and pho-tography pupils went on a trip to the Na-tional Portrait Gallery to see world famous American photographer Annie Leibovitz. Pu-pils were fascinated by her portrait photog-raphy of International celebrities. Her most famous portrait recently was the one of the Queen. Upon their return, students have created photographic portraits inspired by
other International American photogra-phers such as Man Ray and Robert Map-plethorpe.
M. Johns (Subject Leader for Art)
Fred Nicholson School
L’annee 9 - Le Bonhomme de Neige
Every Friday morning I go to Fred Nichol-son School to work with a class of year 9 French students. When I started working at Neatherd I was expected to observe lessons at Fred Nicholson before I could contribute as French language assistant. Thus for the first couple of classes I observed the lessons, the pupils, their level, their interaction and interests. While at Neatherd my duties were clearly outlined, I realised quickly that my role at Fred Nicholson required more flex-ibility and an individual approach to learn-ing. The staff were supportive and made sure that I became an essential part of the lesson. I was encouraged to participate ac-tively and helped with oral/aural games and activities and quickly got to know the pu-pils.
During the weeks leading up to Christmas break, the class at Fred Nicholson started to rehearse a song and I decided to bring my guitar. We had a great time playing and singing ‘Bonhomme de neige’, a song about a snowman who has a hard time ad-justing to the winter cold after the warmth of his house. The snowman inevitably gets cold when outdoors as he has taken off his clothes in the warm indoors. The song, complete with a dance routine, was played in snowman costumes. Once we had, in ac-
cordance with the theme, “broken the ice”, other activities came more naturally. This pushed me to find new ways, often more subtle than a guitar, of teaching both at Fred Nicholson and here, at Neatherd. Through working at Fred Nicholson School as well as Neatherd, I improved my relationship with the pupils and also challenged my approach to teaching and learning. I have since led activities at Fred Nicholson and truly feel that I am a part of the team.
Simin Eldem
Partnership with Fred Nicholson School, Dereham
We are delighted to welcome Simin to Fred Nicholson School. She works with a year 9 group every Friday morning. Simin is a real asset to our lessons as she is happy to take part in whatever we are doing. We love listening to her playing her guitar and she accompanied us when we sang our Christ-mas song in French, “Bonhomme de Neige”. Simin plays oral / aural games with us to help us learn new vocabulary – she is fun to be with and she always helps us with a smile. Thank you Simin!
Janet Dixon(French Teacher at Fred Nicholson School)
Language Matters
Language Matters if you want to travel
Well, it´s been over a year and a half now since we moved to southern Spain. You might remember that we rented a finca out here in the beautiful Sierra de las Nieves and I´m pleased to be able to report that we are still in this neck of the woods, only now in our very own country house into which we moved last November. We´re settling in nicely and are feeling more and more at home. In this fairly rural region, it is abso-lutely crucial to be able to speak Spanish if you want to feel part of the community.
When we arrived in Spain, I had a sound knowledge, having studied and taught the language myself for several years. Nothing prepared us for the shock we got when we arrived in the remote Alpujarras, though. Talk about swallowing single letters – the people who live there swallow whole words if not entire sentences – and sometimes they don´t seem to speak at all but merely grunt. When you don´t understand what they are saying to you, they simply speak more loudly and when two alpujarreños talk to (or should I say shout at) one another, you don´t stand much chance of under-standing any of their conversation.
I remember when we first looked around the flat that we ended up renting shortly after our arrival in Spain, listening to the landlady go on and on about all the mod cons that were contained within. She finished every single one of her many sentences with “¿Me entiende?” (Do you understand me?). We
didn´t, as it happened, but it didn´t seem to worry her unduly. I briefly interrupted her torrent of words and asked her a care-fully thought-through question, so as to avoid making even the tiniest mistake. If she´d mind us having cats in the flat, is what I wanted to know. She looked at me blankly, turned to our Spanish friend who had accompanied us and asked her (not me!) “¿Qué dice?” (What´s she saying?) It makes me laugh thinking about it now but I do remember how offended I had felt at the time. Several expats we´ve got to know over here, have similar stories to tell. They´d gone into either a bar or a shop, said something in - admittedly not accent-free but what they thought had been com-prehensible - Spanish and had subsequently been met with frowns, much shrugging of shoulders, shaking of heads and the dread-ed and utterly soul-destroying: “¿Qué?”
Then, of course, there are the genuine clang-ers. Every foreigner out here has dropped one or two of those at some point in time and we all have our very own funny episode to relate, having tried to communicate in Spanish. A former neighbour once walked into his local supermarket after a long drive home from the coast and – having spent the entire journey carefully putting together what he had wanted to say – asked the shop keeper, much to his embarrassment and the other shoppers´ amusement, for half a kilo-metre of cheese. Another English guy we met wanted to ask the old Spanish farmer, whose land he was looking at, how many almond trees there were. He confused the word ´almendros` with ´alemanes` (easily done!) and – much to the Spaniard´s confu-sion - ended up asking how many Germans the plot boasted. One of our friends found himself telling his Spanish neigh-bour all about his recent bad luck with his chickens which had all been killed by some feral crea-ture. When the man wanted to know if it
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had been a dog who had savaged the birds, our friend – desperately trying to recall the Spanish word for the type of predator, fail-ing to do so and consequently purely guess-ing in the end – told him that they had, in fact, fallen victim to a peach.
Unfortunately, the lack of linguistic knowl-edge is not only a source of amusement. Far from it. Ian has helped out many des-perate expats who had wanted, variously, to protest against quarries being re-opened practically on their doorstep, get connected to mains electricity or merely understand legal papers sent by their solicitor prior to a court appearance. These people had found themselves utterly powerless, inca-pable of sorting out their own problems due to the fact that they could not understand nor communicate sufficiently with Spanish people.
For several months now I have been trying to do my bit to improve communication be-tween expats and locals (as well as earning a bit of a crust in these financially tough times). I am teaching Spanish to Germans
and English people, and English to Span-iards. Some of my pupils have been re-tired for many years and are finding it quite tough to learn vocabulary and grammar but they do try. They try really hard because they – rightly – believe that they owe it to their adopted home country. They are in-terested in the country and the people over here and they quite enjoy learning a new language. Of course they get frustrated at times and feel like throwing in the towel but they get over it, pull themselves together and they keep on trying. I am so proud of every single one of them and feel very privi-leged to be working with such open-minded people. Right, I´d better make a start on my lesson preparation for next week - or shall I sit outside and sunbathe instead?
Moral of this story? Enjoy learning your language learning whilst you don’t have to pay for the privilege. You never know how it may come in useful one day. ¡Hasta la próxima!
Nicky Wilkinson(Ex Deputy Subject Leader for MFL and
now teaching in Spain)
The History Department had the pleasure of working with colleagues from Czech Repub-lic and Germany on a new exciting Year 9 project. We spent three whole days discuss-ing ideas, possibilities and then decided on what were are going to do.
The aim of the project is to encourage us to collaborate with schools from other countries and learn about what it was like to live in Germany, Czech Republic during the Cold War (which Y9s are studying right now!). For example, what was it really like to live in East Berlin in the 1960s when a wall separated the city form the rest of the
world? How different was life in Britain dur-ing this time; did we notice how the world had changed since the end of WWII?
Our teacher colleagues from the partner schools are really friendly and we hope that this will be a long lasting partnership for all concerned.
J. Ahrenfelt(International Co-ordinator)
Visit the History Shared Area on Fronter to stay up-to-date!
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Primary News
Primary Languages continue to thrive!This is an exciting year for languages in pri-mary schools with the approach of the Gov-ernment deadline of September 2009 for the compulsory provision of languages at KS2. We are proud to say that the Dereham cluster of schools has a continuing strong provision of a variety of languages at KS2 supported by the Primary Language Coordi-nator, Karen Keeling and is well in line with government requirements.
There are two new initiatives in Primary languages this year instigated by Neatherd High School. The first is the inclusion of Year 5 pupils in our celebration of achieve-ment evening in the summer term. Two Year 5 pupils have been nominated by each cluster school for their particular aptitude in languages. They will spend time work-
ing with the primary language coordinator who will then film them performing a story, poem or role-play. The film will be shown during our celebration evening when pupils and their families will be invited to share in the success of their achievements.
The second initiative involves a small group of Spanish students from Neatherd High school organising an afternoon of Spanish games in six of our cluster primary schools. This should prove to be a very worthwhile and fun experience for all pupils involved, giving Neatherd pupils an opportunity to practise their language skills for a real pur-pose while enabling primary pupils to have fun with the Spanish they have been learn-ing. We are hoping this can take place early next term.
K. Keeling(Primary Languages Co-ordinator)
Neatherd International News is produced by Andy Kavanagh, ICT Service Manager and Sara French,
