Prosiect Llythrennedd Triphlyg Ysgol y Faenol

Prosiect
Llythrennedd
Triphlyg
Ysgol y Faenol

Ysgol y Faenol
Ysgol Y Faenol is a primary school, located in
Penrhosgarnedd near the City of Bangor in
Gwynedd.
It has around 230 pupils from nursery age to year
6. The school is under the voluntary control of the
Church in Wales. It is a bilingual School.

The school’s linguistic background
Our situation is very different from most of the other schools in the county
because of the multicultural nature of our school. As the school is located
close to the university and the hospital, we have a high percentage of
families who come from various countries around the world.
Arabic
Hindi
French
Malay
Telagu
Singhalese
Bangla
Kurdish
Urdu
Pushtu
Mauritian
German
Farsi
Polish
Yoruba Turkish Chinese Afrikaans Burmese
As a result a number of languages are spoken throughout the school.

The school’s linguistic
background
• Only 10% of pupils come from homes where Welsh is the first
language.
• Over 25% of pupils come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
As a result of our linguistic background, a high percentage of our pupils
learn either Welsh or English as a second language and therefore,
developing our pupils’ literacy skills has always been one of our priorities.

Overview of the Triple
Literacy Project
As a high percentage of our children learn Welsh or English as
a second language from the foundation phase onwards, we
decided to include the infants in our project.
‣Year 6 learning a modern foreign language once a week.
‣ A week to celebrate MFL.
‣Converting story time in the Foundation phase.
‣

French Lessons for Year 6
•We arranged to have a French teacher from a local
comprehensive to help give French lessons to Year 6
•The Year 6 teacher and the French Teacher produced a
scheme of work for the year.

•The Year 6 teacher observed the French teacher teaching
French.
•Both teachers team taught the pupils.
•They shared ideas for valuable resources, useful games,
cultural teaching strategies and good websites.

•Pupils were shown how to make the link between Welsh,
English and French during the lesson.
•Classroom displays were created to help pupils make the link
between the three languages.

This project has lead to high level French lessons allowing
pupils to practise MFL in a fun and varied environment.

Celebrating European
Languages
•Staff meeting to plan the European Languages week.
•Choose a country for each class to concentrate on: The
Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Austria, Russia, Greece and
France.
•Teachers planned tasks, activities and events to be held during
the week.
•Letter sent to teachers informing them of the European week
and asking for any support to help to learn the languages
involved.

On the first day of the celebrations, pupils were invited to
wear the colours that their class was studying.

During the week, pupils were given a lot of
valuable experiences whilst learning about the
various countries in Europe.

Parents visited the classes during the week to
learn a bit about the country and the language.

And during the week, the pupils had a lot of fun
learning to speak a new language.

Language of the term
As the week celebrating European languages had been so successful
it was decided that each class would continue to learn the language
for the remainder of the term..

Story time
Transforming story time within the foundation stage by
introducing stories in some of the pupils’ mother tongues​
• Teachers note the first language of some of the pupils in
their classes.
•Purchase bilingual books. [Arabic/English Chinese/English
Polish/English French/English]

Celebrating the pupils’
mother tongue
• Asking parents to come into the class to help to introduce
stories in their first language.
• Teachers and parents working together to plan the story
session.

Creating bilingual listening
resources
•There was potential to create bilingual resources to use in the
classroom.
•The story time activity was developed further by recording
children's story time in the junior school and telling the stories in
their first language so that the children who were learning English
as a second language would have the opportunity to listen to stories
in English and in their own language.

Language mats and games
•There was potential to use the language skills of our parents in
order to create more multilingual resources to support our
second language children.
•The stories that were being introduced in all classes across the
foundation stage were noted, and the teachers went on to
create story mats have simple games based on these stories.
•The key vocabulary related to each story was noted in Welsh
and English on the resources. The Welsh vocabulary were
noted in red and the English vocabulary in black.
•Parents were asked to add vocabulary in their mother tongue in
blue on the resources too.

•These resources are a help to the second language children
because they allow pupils to make a connection between their
first language and the new language they are learning in the
classroom.
•These resources have also engaged the other pupils and they
are also used as a resource for teaching the first language to
the rest of the class.

Pupils using the
multilingual
resources

Benefits of the triple literacy
project
French Lessons for year 6;
‣Valuable professional development for a year 6 teacher, as he gains
experience of observing and learning together with the French teacher
from the local secondary school.
‣Create a strong link with the local secondary school, developing good
transition arrangements between KS2 and KS3.
‣Many good ideas for activities and resources to use in lessons were
shared and as a result, the standard of French lessons have improved.
The year 6 teacher felt he was much more confident in teaching the
subject this year and knows how to extend the pupils.
‣The attitude of the children towards learning French is very positive -
96% of year 6 pupils say they enjoy their French lessons.
‣Contributes towards improving the literacy skills of our pupils – there
has been a significant increase in the uptake of level 5 in Welsh and
English.
‣ Pupils leaving our schools with a good level of French.

Benefits of the triple
literacy project
Story time, audio stories, games and language mats.
‣Raising children's awareness of other first languages ​that exist in the
classrooms
‣Improve pupils' attitude towards other languages ​and cultures in the
school.
‣ Instils a sense of pride in their first language for EAL pupils.
‣ Develops an effective partnership with the parents of those who have
traditionally tended to be marginalized in the school community.
‣Multilingual resources enables non-English parents to be actively
involved in their children's learning.
‣Development in the language acquisition skills of EAL pupils. The
multilingual resources promotes development in literacy skills by
encouraging the EAL pupils to transfer concepts and skills developed in
one language into the other.

Benefits of the triple
literacy project
Celebrating European languages week / language of the term
‣ Expands the horizons of our pupils.
‣ Improves pupils' awareness of other cultures
‣Nurtures a love for learning new languages ​- 90% enjoyed
learning a new language during the week and 76% believe
that learning different languages ​is important.
‣ Creates a better link with parents.
‣Enriches our curricular provision by offering real
experiences to the pupils.
‣Create a sense of respect for other languages ​and cultures.