Wakefield Girls' High School Juniors partners with local state schools for a day with The Flying Theatre Company
Wakefield Girls High School and Wakefield Girls' High School Juniors School are both involved with partnerships with local state schools. This partnership was funded by the DfE which paid for two sessions of the theatre to be booked. The funding allowed the school to book an additional session making it available to the other five schools who attended.
The partnership included a visit by a French Theatre. The Theatre delivered two performances, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The following schools were involved:
Wakefield Girls High School Junior School (WGHSJS) – hosts
St John’s Primary School (state)
Towngate Primary School (state)
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Junior School (independent)
The performance was pitched to give children confidence in their ability to understand and speak French. Teachers were asked to prepare children for the performance using a vocabulary list provided, allowing them to join in and realise how much French they could actually speak and understand.
Aims
The objectives identified by WGHSJS were:
To develop a positive attitude to learning French
To motivate learning and increase cultural awareness
To encourage spontaneous use of French with growing confidence.
Background
There were already links with most of these schools as there is an established science partnership. Towngate had not been involved in the science ISSP but as a result of the links made for this project they are now included.
In advance of the performance the children were given a vocabulary list to help become familiar with the words and phrases used during the performance.
Resources
A significant factor when organising this event was that the partner schools are all local. This helps to keep costs down as only one school needed transport to attend the theatre event. All but one of the partner schools were able to walk to the host school, WGHSJS paid for coach travel for the other school.
This project was awarded funding by the DfE Independent State School Partnerships (ISSP). The funding was used solely to pay for two performances by The Flying Theatre Company who delivered a French educational production ‘La Tour de France’.
Impact
All the children who gave feedback said that they had learned new French words. It has also been a positive experience for staff to have links with other schools, see how they work and one that they would be keen to do again. It was seen as a positive experience for the children especially for those who will transfer from one of the partner schools to Wakefield Girls High School in Y7.
The children said that they liked being able to all watch the production together and thought it had been a ‘good day.'
There are other partnerships already established, including the science project previously mentioned. The class teacher from St John’s explained that there was a very positive spirit in Wakefield for partnerships.