Dieppe trip, year 10

A group of Yr 10 students studying French Applied GCSE (Leisure and Tourism) and French NVQ visited Dieppe and our partner school ‘Collège Delvincourt’ to participate in activities that supported the required learning for their course. To practice speaking and collect materials for written coursework the benefited in particular from a visit arranged by Collège Delvincourt to the brand new Centre Aquatique et Thalasso in Dieppe. They interviewed staff at their Hotel and asked crew on the Transmanche Ferry to complete questionnaires. Already, the French NVQ have produced results far above those originally predicted for them and Hove Park school awaits similar success’ from the Applied French GCSE Course in June 2008.

Vive Le HAC

On Thursday 15th November members of the Le Havre professional football team (Le HAC), currently second of French Division Two, visited Hove Park School. The players discussed there lifestyle to our students in French and presented a prize of two Seagull match tickets to Nathan Etheridge who recently won a competition held by Brighton and Hove Albion to mark the European Day of Languages back in September.

Le HAC and the Albion are partners in a European Interreg3a project to promote education through sport. Recently the Government responded to a parliamentary question about the steep decline in students taking languages after the age of 14 in England’s schools. Nationally the figure has dropped to less than 50%. Not at Hove Park School where 90% still study a language after the age of 14 with Chinese Mandarin being introduced into the curriculum.

Delvincourt

Conseil des collegiens

In July 2007 Hove Park School helped to organise a Franco-British School Council Summit between the Brighton and Hove City School Council and its sister organization in Seine-Maritime. In the grandiose surrounding of the council chamber in Brighton Town Hall and in presence of the City’s Mayor, the French school council delegates aged 13-15 presented a DVD-film, sub-titled in English, introducing their region of Normandy.

A lively debate followed on the role of school councils on both sides of the Channel and what common issues the students faced despite living in two very different countries. A vote unanimously passed to continue these meetings and now plans are underway to develop a cross-channel school council project under the new Interreg IV programme. Brighton and Hove school councilors said they would very much like to develop a web-site that emulated the one that serves their French counterparts. http://www.collegiens76.net/

Lycée Les Bruyères, 2005/06

The collaboration between Lycée Les Bruyères, Rouen and Hove Park School has been much more ‘vocational’. The original focus of the cooperation centered around Business Studies in the fields of Fashion and Retail. Hove Park Students produced a Fashion Show based on their acquired knowledge of the French fashion industry and exchanged a video of it with students in Rouen.

French students visited England in March 2006 comparing town centre and retail park shipping centres. This involved visits to the Marina retail complex and the Churchill Square Shopping Centre where they were able to interview the Centre’s Deputy General Manager on the success, business rationale and future of the shopping centre. French students also used Hove Park counterpart as customer focus groups to find out shopping habits of young people in Brighton and Hove.

Lycée Les Bruyères 2006/07

The Business Studies project is set to continue with pre-Christmas visits to France and England to compare how large stores in city centres prepare for Christmas in order to make the maximum amount of sales.

Importantly, like the other projects, the initial project is generating further cooperation between the two schools. Lycée Les Bruyères teaches elements of Humanites (Geography and History) and Science through English in its ‘Classes Européennes’ . Teachers from both schools will explore how Hove Park School can assist their French colleagues deliver this international dimension of the curriculum. Likewise, Hove Park teachers will be seeking to do field work in France with their students to further the goals of their own schemes of work. At the same time, students learning French and English will have opportunities to exchange and exploit the cross-channel Interreg3a link to improve their linguistic skills.

Both Hove Park School and Lycée Les Bruyères are committed in their mission to work closely with their local and business communities to promote the life chances of their students whose social-economic backgrounds are very similar. Cooperation at Senior Management Level is planned to exchange best practice in terms of work experience, school/business links, student inclusion and careers education.

Collège Delvincourt 2006/07

The collaboration between Collège Delvincourt and Hove Park School is set to diversify into different subject areas. It has already spawned a History project where pupils are going to explore their common histories focusing on the theme ‘Battlefields and Invasion’. In October, English students visited the 1^st and 2^nd World battlefields in the Somme and Pas de Calais areas, looking too at the War Poetry that was generated by the horrific conflicts of the 20^th century played out on French soil. French students are set to visit England in December to visit the site of the Norman invasion in 1066 which is such a pivotal event in the histories of France and England. The French pupils will also visit London’s Imperial War Museum and other sites of ‘Norman’ England in the capital, spending a session with English pupils exploring the joint historical bond between the South of England and Normandy in France.

At Hove Park School a number of Year 9 pupils are fast-tracked in French to take their French GCSE two years early. These students are to visit Dieppe in the Spring Term of 2007 in order to receive tuition and practice from the counterparts. They will communicate via ICT first, rehearsing writing and speaking assignments crucial for exam success in June 2007. They will also visit the sites of the failed ‘Dieppe Raid’ in 1942 when Canadian and British troops were defeated trying to seize a functioning port from the occupying German forces.

For more information about the Dieppe Raid go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid

Collège Delvincourt 2005/06

Via internet links and other electronic media, Year 9 students at Hove Park School and Collège Delvincourt in Dieppe collaborated on a music project comparing popular music in England and France. The joint curriculum activity produced music and songs composed and performed by pupils on both sides of the Channel. The English teachers visited French counterparts to plan the activities. It is hoped to organise an event where students visit each other and discuss their project face-to-face. To hear the music made simply click on the links below.

Hove Park College.mp3
Freedom.mp3

Lycée Rey, Rouen

In 2005/6 students from Hove Park School and Lycée Rey collaborated on drama project which culminated in two performances by each of the schools repeated once in Brighton and one in Rouen in front of English and French audiences. The productions, written by the students themselves and based on research carried out by them in Brighton and Rouen, set out to represent the way that people ‘on the street’ in one city perceived the population of the other. Essentially, the two plays examined the national stereotyping and the preconceptions of the French for the English and vice-versa.

Integrated into this project was both cultural and linguistic learning. Both students groups rehearsed and performed in each other’s school and at theatre venue in Brighton and Rouen respectively. Students studying French at Hove Park School helped to translate and perform a commentary for the English production whilst at the same time practising for their French AS course speaking and writing assignments.

The final productions, watched by over 100 people at the two venues in Rouen and Brighton were a great success and much applauded by the audience.

In 2006/7 the collaboration between Lycée Rey and Hove Park School is set to continue on the drama front broadening out into more subject areas. The drama departments are planning joint work on Shakespeare. Students from Rouen visited Stratford-upon-Avon in October to see Romeo and Juliette by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the famous Swan Theatre.

Hove Park School, which is a Specialist Language College, is going to send students to Lycée Rey to help them prepare for AS/A2 and GCSE examination courses. There will also be joint staff seminars to explore future curriculum cooperation between the schools with students and teachers communicating by new technologies such as email and videoconferencing.