Herefordshire teachers from across the county attended a unique conference this week to help them open their pupils' minds to other languages, cultures and traditions.
The Global Child Conference took place at the Three Counties Hotel, Hereford on Tuesday May 20th and was organised by Herefordshire Council's school improvement service for primary school teachers and teaching assistants. More than 50 delegates, some from neighbouring authorities, learned about the benefits of creating international links in the classroom and developing creative approaches to modern languages teaching.
Keynote speakers included Nigel Pearson from the National Centre for Language Teaching and Trevor Davies, head teacher of Balsall Common Primary School in Coventry, an outstanding school which has adopted the international primary curriculum. Paul Burrows from the British Council talked about the ways in which schools can make the most of opportunities for both pupils and teachers to share their experiences with their contemporaries in other world countries.
All primary schools are expected to have an international link by September 2010 and every primary school pupil aged 7-11 will be entitled to learn a foreign language at school. Primary school teachers across the county have been attending language booster classes and additional training to help them teach modern languages. As a result, in Herefordshire more than 95 percent of primary schools have already introduced this to pupils, with French, Spanish, German or Italian being offered in most primary schools.
Delegates were welcomed to the conference by pupils from Trinity Primary School in their own language (Ndebele, Youraba, Portugese, French, Polish, Turkish, Thai and Malayalam.) The conference began with these pupils teaching the delegates their own language versions of "Frere Jacques" then leading everyone in a multi-lingual version in a round.
Rosalind Venables, primary modern foreign languages consultant, said: "A number of our schools are already exploring the international dimension, showing their pupils how they each have a valuable contribution to make to the global society.
"The learning of a modern language is one step towards creating future world citizens and it is so much easier to do when children are young.
Discovering, respecting and supporting other cultures and nations are important values for young people. We hope that the primary teachers who attended this conference feel well equipped to develop an international ethos to their curriculum."