Hetton Primary School

Posted: Sun, May 16, 2021 1:43 PM

We started teaching French at Hetton Primary School after Easter and already look forward to seeing all the Key Stage 2 classes each week. We do lots of repetition and already have some great pronunciation and accents in all classes we also sing, move, play games and more. Children of this age have fantastic skills and retain so much vocabulary in such a short space of time...I've been so impressed with the progress they've made in this short space of time.

In 2 hours every Friday I deliver 30 minutes of interactive French to each class and then they complete some reading or writing tasks in their workbooks while I move onto the next class. I feel like a French whirlwind moving from class to class and am exhausted come home time but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! I mistakenly attempted heads, shoulders, knees and toes 3 times in a row at normal, double and then triple speed with all classes this week - yep 12 times took it's toll on me but I wouldn't have it any other way! We'd love all primary schools in our area to have access to high quality languages provision and this is our aim moving forwards.

We received a lovely testimonial from Hetton this week and just wanted to share some quotes from it with you (the whole thing can be found in our testimonial section)...

‘The children love their French sessions on a Friday afternoon. Madame Armes is excellent with my class at managing behaviour. She is very clear of what she expects, and she makes the lessons fun and interactive for all. ‘

‘I love French! The games are so much fun and we sing lots of songs!’

‘French is going extremely well.  The sessions are very interactive and all of the children are able to join in no matter their ability.  The language is taught through songs, actions and repetition which is very engaging and it is helping them to remember what has been taught.  The children really look forward to Madame Armes coming into class and they enjoy the sessions a lot.’

‘We fill in booklets after our lessons and nobody finds it hard because we’ve learnt so much and remember it. The booklets have spaces for writing, colouring and matching words to objects.’

‘Year 5 really enjoy the French sessions on a Friday afternoon. The practical and musical structure of the lessons helps the children to remember key terms and recap on concepts covered in previous weeks/sessions. The enthusiastic delivery of the sessions has the pupils hooked, without fail, every week.’