Emmaus became a 'Centre of Excellence for French in September 2001.  The learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for the pupils. The children will develop communication and literacy skills that lay the foundation for their future language learning. Children from Nursery to Year 6 receive weekly French lessons; the lessons promote French in a fun and enjoyable way. Year 6 will complete the 'School Improvement Liverpool examination and this will give the children the opportunity to achieve a level from 1 – 4.  

 

French Pupil Council

As a Centre of Excellence for French, language learning plays an important role in school life at Emmaus. At Emmaus, each class has a French Pupil Council Representative. The aim of French Pupil Council is to enable children to become involved in the decision making processes involved in language learning. This year we are hoping to achieve the Quality Mark for French in addition to twinning our school with primary schools in both France and Francophone Africa. French Pupil Council meets with Miss Dickinson on a regular basis to suggest and carry out ideas relating to improving French across our school.

 

Year 5 Visit to the Chateau du Broutel – Somme Department, France

Our Year 5 children take part in a 4 day residential to northern France at the end of the summer term. The children stay in the magnificent Chateau du Broutel near the town of Rue in several acres of beautiful grounds.  During their stay the children have the opportunity to take part in several adventurous activities including kayaking, rafting and abseiling. They also take part in evening activities ranging from the Chateau Olympics to a camp fire.  In order to develop their cultural knowledge of France the children visit a goat farm where they have the opportunity to see how the animals are looked after and how goat’s cheese is made in the farmer’s kitchen! The children also visit a chocolate factory and see how chocolate is produced. This enhances the work that Year 5 do in their ‘Chocolate’ topic during the year. One of the highlights of the visit is a visit to the town of Albert in the Somme. This area was in the heart of the fighting in the Great War. During the day the children visit the famous Battle of the Somme Museum and then visit the memorial site at Thiepval before visiting the trenches at the Newfoundland Regiment Memorial.

You can find out more on our Residentials page.

 

Ecole Xarito, Sénégal

At Emmaus, we are delighted that our school is now twinned with Ecole Xarito in Dakar, Senegal.

The word 'xarito' means 'love'.

French Pupil Council sent their first letter to our new-found friends in November 2016 and we are very happy to have received our first letter back in January 2017.

In our letter, we described what our school was like. We told them about the subjects we learn and the extra curricular activities that we are able to participate in. We also told them about our city – Liverpool. We took lots of photos of our school and included postcards of Liverpool too.

The official language of Senegal is French - so Miss Dickinson has translated the letter into English for us.

The children open their letter by saying that we are their dear friends and that they are very proud to be twinned with us. They tell us that Senegal is a country situated on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. There are about 14 million people living there. Senegal is a country with lots of farms and industry.

Ecole Xarito was created in the year 2000 – so 17 years ago. It was set up to give underprivileged children a chance to go to school.

In Ecole Xaritio, there are 354 children aged between 4 and 14. There are 169 girls and 185 boys. The school year starts in October and finishes in July. Their summer holidays last 2 and a half months! All of the children walk to school because they live nearby. School starts at 8 in the morning and lessons stop at 12pm for lunch. Children all go home for lunch and then return at 3 o’clock for more classes until 5pm.

At school, the children study French, Maths, History, Geography, Science, Art and Poetry. They go on day trips – to visit factories, the zoo or the beach. Each class at Ecole Xarito has its own football team. They also have two teams that represent their school and play against other schools. One team is for girls and the other is for boys.

The children finish their letter by saying that they hope that we reply soon!

Each class at Emmaus will be given the opportunity to write to a class at Ecole Xarito.  We are really looking forward to replying to our friends in Africa!