Our successful partnership with Notre Dame de Campostal, a catholic secondary school in France.

The French exchange

Soon after becoming a Language College we were paired up with a language college in Brittany. Our partnership has been growing stronger and stronger over the last five years and children at St Chad’s have been reaping the benefit of it.
We have run 5 successful pupil exchanges with Notre Dame de Campostal.
Our students spend on week in their partners’ family the week before Easter and we welcome the French students in Runcorn the third week of June. During their stay in France, students attend lessons with their partners and go on trips to famous Breton towns, such as Quimper. They also visit beauty spots such as Le Mont St Michel.
The benefits for children are numerous:

• Experiencing a foreign culture widens their horizon, enriches their minds and has the potential to turn them into tolerant and fully rounded individuals.
• Students who have taken part in the exchange say that their confidence in speaking the language has vastly improved and that their listening and speaking skills have been greatly enhanced.
• Students have established a strong and long lasting friendship with families and partners in France.

As we will be running our sixth exchange in 2009, I would like to invite all year 10, 12 and 13 students who are interested to join us.
The cost of the trip is minimal and can be paid in several instalments. 

I would like to thank personally Mrs Hanson, Mr Richmond, Ayling and father Peter who delivered a series of lessons for our French partners when they visited us in June.
Mrs Hanson impressed the French students by demonstrating the new pod-casting technology that she regularly uses in her lessons.
Mr Richmond also impressed them by demonstating the use of the interactive whiteboard, while delivering a lesson on the First World War. The French students were particularly impressed by how well equipped our classrooms are. They do not have interactive whiteboards at Campostal yet.
Ayling gave them a taster lesson in Chinese language and culture and Father Peter Wright kindly accepted to do a meditation session with them, which they thoroughly enjoyed. 

The Comenius project: A European Cross curricular project

Three yearsago, Mr LeVot, the head teacher of Campostal contacted me to ask me whether we would be interested to embark on a 3 year cross curricular project with them and another two schools in Germany and Poland.
The project “Nature does not know any borders” enabled children in year 9 to work on a geography and science project with students in France, Germany and Poland. Thanks to a generous funding from the British Council we were able to send our students on study visits to our partner schools in these three countries.
The benefit for our students was immense. Students who had taken part in the Comenius project asked to go on the French exchange soon afterwards because they were eager to see their new friends again.

For the second time, we have sent an application to the British Council to join another Comenius project involving the sixth form. We should hear soon whether our application has been successful.

What does the future hold for our partnership?

Following in the footsteps of Scott McElroy, Kieran Connolly, a year 13 student, will be taking a gap at Notre Dame de Campostal before going to university. During his year there he will be working as an English assistant in the school to help French students with their English. Kieran will have plenty of free time to follow lessons and sit the Baccalauréat, which is the equivalent of 4 good A levels. Kieran had previously taken part in the exchange.

Work experience for St Chad’s students in Brittany.

Two years ago we organised a two-day taster work experience for our exchange students in France. This year we will be offering a three or four day work experience to students who have previously taken part in the exchange and to sixth formers. Students will have the opportunity to work in local primary schools, restaurants, café and crêperie.

Videoconferencing project.

From September 2008, 2 year 11 French classes will communicate on a monthly basis with 2 classes at Notre Dame de Campostal. This will enable students to use their French for a real purpose and should therefore be a great motivator for pupils. It will be a great help to prepare students for their French GCSE exams.

Emmanuelle Lagarde
French Teacher