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Modern Languages Blog

Archive for November, 2006

Your chance to celebrate education – Scottish Education Awards 2007

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The Scottish Education Awards 2007 are now open for nominations. The Awards, first launched in 2001, are going from strength to strength with a record number of nominations last year. The awards are open to all Scottish publicly funded schools and pre-school establishments, and will again include categories covering Local Authorities, Schools and Teaching/Support staff. Nurseries in partnership with their local authority are eligible to enter. Anyone can make a nomination and there is no limit to the number of nominations that can be made.

Sponsored by the Daily Record, CBI, BT Scotland and the Scottish Executive, the Awards seek to celebrate success and recognise good practice in Scottish Education. If you know of a school or individual who is deserving of recognition for the work they are doing, why not nominate them today for one of the Awards?

The winners of the 2007 Scottish Education Awards will be announced at a ceremony in the City Halls, Glasgow on Friday 15 June 2007. There a variety of prizes on offer so it’s well worth entering.

Visit the Scottish Education Awards website to nominate online and for further information on the 2007 award categories. The closing date for nominations is Friday 23 February 2007.

Cooish Gaelic festival kicks off

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The annual celebration of Manx language, culture and heritage has kicked off in the Isle of Man.

The festival lasts until 1 December and is called Cooish – which is the Manx Gaelic word for ‘chat’ or ‘conversation’.

Read about the festival on the BBC website.

McConnell pledges to reduce class sizes across Scotland

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Pupils are to be encouraged to remain in school until 18 under plans which were set out by Jack McConnell on Saturday. As part of his plans for education, he also stated that foreign language learning should start from primary three. The proposals target languages as one of the poorest areas of performance by Scots in secondary, and continue with promises on reduced primary class sizes.

Read the story in the Scotsman Online.

School Day: China link-up

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On Friday 24 November 2006, the BBC hosted a live laptop link-up with pupils in a school in Beijing.

As part of the link-up, children from a school in London put their questions to the students in Beijing. Read the article on the BBC website on to find out more about the two schools that took part in the live link-up.

Scottish Languages Review from Scottish CILT – latest issue now published

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The most recent issue of the Scottish Languages Review is now online. Just visit the Scottish CILT website to read the current issue and all previous issues.

Quebec declared a nation within a nation

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Canada’s opposition Liberal party said last night it will support Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion recognising Quebec as a nation within Canada.

Read the full story on the Herald website.

Honour for PC who learned Polish

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A police officer who learned Polish to work with the growing immigrant community in Wrexham has been honoured.

Read the full story on the BBC website.

Language barrier leaves children lost for words

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Parlez-vous? Not any more if the decline in modern language study continues. The Times Online has the full article.

Colleges hit by languages decline

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The modern languages crisis is no longer confined to schools; once-popular subjects are in terminal decline in the FE sector too, college principals warned today. Read the article in the Education Guardian.

The journey starts here

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As modern foreign language provision will be required for all Key Stage 2 children by 2010, primary schools are starting to introduce a more global theme to their teaching. Read the article in the Education Guardian.