“Shopping in France” wins national prize for St. Philips

For the past ten years St. Philip’s senior national school in Mountview has been blazing a trail in the teaching of European languages to primary school pupils.

The Modern Languages in Primary Schools Initiative (MLPSI) was established as a pilot project in 1998 and St. Philips was one of the first schools in Ireland to be involved in the pilot. Since then the school has remained heavily involved in the initiative, offering both both French and Spanish classes to its pupils.

Deputy Principal Geraldine Casey, who heads up the initiative in the school, explained that classes take place both during and after school and around 100 pupils in 5th and 6th classes are involved.

“The programme introduces pupils to European languages at an early stage,” she said. “As well as giving them an understanding and liking of the language, it is also of great benefit to them when they go into secondary school. Very often we have pupils who come back to us and say ‘I got an A in this exam thanks to the kick start I got in primary school.’”

“The classes are not typical of normal language teaching,” said teacher Jane O’Toole. “We use lots of songs and poetry and interactive games to get the children involved.”

Recently the school was rewarded for its efforts when a team of four pupils won one of only five prizes in a national competition. The theme of the competition was ‘using ICT in our French class.” The project had to be presented in PowerPoint, making use of the pupils’ computer and French language skills. Entries were based on teams of between 2 and 5 pupils.

One of the school’s entries submitted by a team of four girls, Michelle Stamatova, Jianne de Jesus, Blanche Elobo and Jennifer Okun Daye, on the subject of “shops in France’ was selected as one of the five national winners. “We were the only school in Dublin to win a prize,” said Geraldine. “It really does highlight the hard work of the children.”

The prize for winning the competition was a digital camera for the school and all of the children who submitted entries were also awarded certificates.

However the work of the four members of the winning team was also recognised by the school and each girl was presented with a voucher for the Blanchardstown Centre in recognition of their success on behalf of St Philips.

 

Community Voice, Media House, Church Avenue, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15
Phone +353 1 822 1432 -  Fax +353 1 640 4444
info@communityvoice.ie

All content and images are © Perceptions[Publicity and Event Management] Limited. All rights reserved
Site developed by Vincent Cahill