Goodlyburn Primary School, Perth and Kinross

In our P4-7 Gaelic class language learning is part of the every day, with Gaelic being the main language of the classroom. Pupils also have French as L3 which is taught through Gaelic. We made our language learning a bit more special for European Day of Languages and ended up with a week of celebrations. 

On Friday, P4, who are just starting out with French, shared a working breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate while learning the numbers to 20. We did some matching of numerals to French words, sang and danced to a numbers song, played bingo and kept it all secret from P6 and 7 pupils! 

On Monday, all of P4-7 were able to share an amazing European breakfast with hot chocolate, baguette, cheeses and meats from all round Europe. This was thanks to a very generous donation from our local Morrison’s community champion Stephanie. Pupils were able to try new foods and enjoy some favourites. We followed this by some map work, using atlases to plot and name European countries in Gaelic. 

At the end of the week, it was back to P4 and P5 to have a French session – and another breakfast! Pain au chocolat and fruit juice were enjoyed while practising answering questions about choices of plates, cups and juices in French. We read some French stories after our breakfast to fit in with the Ness Book Festival challenge and pupils understood a surprising amount of vocabulary, joining in with some of the noises in ‘La chasse à l’ours.’ We learned vocabulary for members of the family, identifying family members in the books we read. We again finished with a game of Bingo, this is becoming a weekly event!

Burgh Primary School, South Lanarkshire

On Thursday 23rd September 2021 Burgh Primary celebrated European Day of Languages with all pupils being encouraged to dress in the colours of the French or Spanish flags. Across the day all classes took part in a variety of activities including learning some French and Spanish vocabulary, and learning about different aspects of French and Spanish culture. 

The day started with an EDL assembly then our P7 pupils led the learning, delivering fun, interactive lessons to our P1-P6 classes. P1-3 loved learning French colours, numbers and greetings whilst P4-6 enjoyed learning Spanish colours, numbers and days of the week/months of the year. 

Later on in the day each class learned about an aspect of French/Spanish culture including La Tomatina Festival (P4), famous French people (P3a/b) and Pablo Picasso (P6). 

The day ended with a quiz, again delivered by our P7 pupils. All staff and pupils enjoyed the day and can't wait to continue learning lots of French and Spanish across this year. 

Acting Head Teacher, Laura Easton said “By celebrating European Day of Languages we taught our pupils as much of the French and Spanish language as possible. Our pupils had the opportunity to participate in a wide range of activities that integrated language learning with fun. A fantastic day organised by our P7 teacher and pupils!”

Caldervale High School, North Lanarkshire

This year our school completed a variety of tasks to celebrate European Day of Languages. 

Pupils were involved in designing European Day of Languages T-shirts and postcards. 

Our S3 pupils spent some time researching why learning languages is important and what benefits being multilingual has on job prospects, health and general global awareness. They created some fabulous leaflets to advertise the benefits. 

We also spoke to our staff in the school and found out that lots of the wider staff spoke multiple languages! You can see on our twitter @cvalemfl the variety of languages spoken and why it is important. 

Banchory-Devenick School, Aberdeenshire

We celebrated European Day of Languages by having a whole school Spanish Day:

• P1-P4:
• worked in teams to build towers and then used their knowledge of Spanish numbers to measure the heights
• listened to Old MacDonald and made a Spanish farmyard display 

• P5-P7:
• made books in Book Creator to help teach their younger buddies their Spanish numbers
• created a rainforest display and labelled the animals in Spanish
• made a class book in Book Creator introducing and describing the rainforest animals 

• Whole school: 
• played games, sang songs, watched fairy-tales and read books together all in Spanish

We linked the work we did for European Day of Languages to the CRC Articles as we are currently applying for Bronze Level Rights Respecting Schools accreditation: Article 'the right to a nationality', and Article 31 'the right to take part in cultural and artistic activities'.

Inveralmond Community High School, West Lothian

We ran a challenge for our S1 classes along with our P6/P7 pupils from our 6 cluster schools. Pupils had to do as many of the 10 challenges as they could within a week. Some of the challenges included finding out about French speaking celebrities, French speaking countries, making and eating a foreign meal and teaching someone at home a word or phrase you know in French. 

Our S2 pupils looked at links between French and Spanish words and created posters. 

Our S3 pupils chose a cultural topic which they researched, made resources and “taught” to another group. 

Classes also took part in various quizzes and the absolute favourite was our lunchtime photo booth!

Denny Primary School, Falkirk

At Denny Primary, our Language Ambassadors met with our 1+2 Languages Leader to plan a day of celebrations. 

These included:

• Nursery pupils learning to say 'bonjour' as well as hello in the languages spoken by our families. 
• P1-3 made leaves for our Tree of Languages to say hello in many different languages. 
• P4-P7 did quizzes (created by our young leaders), completed the 'Hello Challenge' and played Kahoots about France as well as other European languages. 
• Teachers focussed on Spanish and French in class. 
• All children enjoyed either a croissant or pain au chocolat to end the day while wearing the French flag colours of blue, white and red.

St Ninian's High School, Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire

St Ninian's High School celebrated European Day of Languages in style with pupils and staff getting involved in a series of events and activities over four days. 

Staff dressed up for the occasion and greeted their classes each day in a variety of languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German, Polish and Romanian. The School Prayer was translated into French and Spanish and recited by staff and pupils each morning. A very typical French breakfast was served to all staff with donations given to the school's charity: Beatson Cancer Charity.

Pupils participated in quizzes on the importance of languages, idioms, languages in movies, and guess the teacher and the language they are speaking. Pupils also made some magnificent drawings for our Picture Competition and were invited to participate in a European Day of Languages Bake Off. Finally, the Modern Languages department got on their bikes and added a few more kilometres towards St Ninian's virtual Cycle to Calcutta for the Beatson Cancer Charity.

Meldrum School, Aberdeenshire

Meldrum School in Aberdeenshire took part in a whole school languages week to celebrate European Languages Day. 

Each year group was assigned a language: 

• P1- Doric 
• P2- French 
• P3- German 
• P4- Spanish 
• P5- Italian 
• P6- Polish 
• P7- Russia 
• Enhanced Provision- British Sign Language 

Each class had to find out where their language is spoken in Europe using a map, research and create flags for their country and learn basic phrases including ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’. We shared our learning at our end of week virtual assembly.

A whole school 'welcome' display will be created at the front of the school to highlight the work produced throughout the week. A video of our learning was shared with the wider community on our school Twitter page @MeldrumSchool

King's Park Secondary, Glasgow

From King's Park Secondary School's Language Ambassadors

In our roles as Language Ambassadors we have been working hard behind the scenes to create a fun filled week to celebrate European Week for Languages. We led different activities and worked collaboratively with the school community to organise the events.  

Each day of the week we presented a language-themed challenge question on the tannoy which all classes got involved in answering. It was so thrilling to see people in such enthusiastic competition for the prizes!

We also hosted an online quiz throughout the school in which people had to guess which language the word “language” had been translated to. We awarded chocolates and certificates to the first five winners!

We were delighted at the participation in our events and very pleased to see so many people getting involved with languages in our school! 

Glenalmond College

It has been an exciting week in the languages department at Glenalmond College!

Firstly, to celebrate European Week of Languages, our Lower Sixth International pupils made the most of their EAL lessons to teach the rest of their class a lesson in their native language. It was exciting to see our pupils take such pride in teaching their mother tongue, and we had the opportunity to learn a few basic words, phrases and facts in Mandarin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Swedish and Russian! 

Our pupils across the school also recorded videos wishing people a 'Happy European Week of Languages' in other languages, and this provided an opportunity to celebrate our community on social media. The teaching and learning of languages is central to life at Glenalmond and it was fabulous to be able to celebrate languages which are not taught as part of the curriculum. Pupils throughout the school were also able to take part in a languages quiz in tutor groups and to learn about language families, etymology and sign language. 

Secondly, last term, we enjoyed double success in a prestigious competition run by the Queen’s College, Oxford University and this week our pupils were delighted to receive their award certificates. James SF (French) and Ellie A (Spanish) emerged as the top entries from Scotland in the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators. They were celebrated for their insightful and creative translation of poetry and we could not be prouder!

Armadale Academy, West Lothian

Armadale Academy created a recap video of their EDL celebrations, you can watch the video online. 

Uryside School, Aberdeenshire

EDL celebrations at Uryside School:

• P1 have been playing language corners. 
• P2 have drawn various languages around the world. 

• P3 have written and drawn "hello" in various languages.
• P4 and P6 have been looking at various countries and languages and sorted pieces of information.

• P5 have been involved in a music quiz .
• P7 have found the French, Spanish, and German for various words using technology.

Holy Cross High School, South Lanarkshire

EDL week was very busy in Holy Cross High School:

• Pupils in Modern Languages took part in quizzes and fun activities in class. The music quiz was a particular favourite. 
• Some of our pupils wrote about why they love languages and their responses were made into a short film for EDL. 
• Pupils tasted European foods in class and many S1/2 pupils had a special EDL lunchtime treat at our languages café. 
• Our languages ambassadors organised a competition for S1 and S2 pupils and there was also a tutor quiz for all pupils to take part in. S1 pupils had to design a European plate and S2 pupils had to "find the flag" around the school and demonstrate their language skills. 
• Mr Aiton in RE helped us to organise a mass in Spanish for pupils in the Higher Spanish class and all members of the MFL department were also able to attend. 
• Kickstart pupils (SFL) had a European breakfast. The Home Economics department went European with choux buns and pizza in their senior classes and the teachers from MFL helped to choose the star baker/chef. 
• Mr Hutcheson organised a "masked linguist" competition for staff only which was very well received.

St Margaret's Academy, West Lothian

Our Modern Languages Department at St Margaret's Academy has ran different language activities all week to celebrate languages. 

These have included European and language quizzes, poster competitions on the importance of learning languages, building Eiffel Towers with recyclable straws, karaoke, online games in different languages, Spanish music quizzes, tasting foreign food and taster lessons in Italian. 

Finally, a slogan competition on 'why learn languages' has been open to all pupils and entries posted all week into a box in the ML area. The winner will win two cinema tickets.