The Hallifordian - 2016-2017

37 The European Week of Languages Felicitations to all our pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 for participating so enthusiastically in the Eu- ropean Week of Languages, an annual European- wide initiative to raise awareness of the huge number of languages and cultures of the European Union. Joseph Baker, Owen Morris and Edward Luckins, Year 8. Quite the international community our- selves, with many of our pupils and staff being bilin- gual, it was very exciting to hear them in Assembly introducing themselves in their mother tongue. The languages represented during the assembly were Afrikaans, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Flemish, Basque, Spanish, French, Arabic and Greek. These only represent a fraction of the foreign languages within our community. At lunchtime, the dining hall was abuzz with conversation about the wide variety of delicious Eu- ropean dishes that Alan had prepared for the day. Our formal French, German and Spanish lessons were suspended for a week and each year participated in a project which related to the learning of languages in general. The topics covered over the week were: “Teaching a European language to class- mates” (Year 9), “The Importance of Languages” (Year 8) and “General Information about a European Country” (Year 7). This proved to be a lot of fun and each class entertained their peers with a power point presen- tation with either facts, a quiz, music and in some cases food! Each group marked each other’s presen- tation on the quality of the slides, information and delivery. Well done, everyone! Mr Gruner, Head of Modern Foreign Languages Le Touquet Trip On the 4th of July 2017, Year 7 went abroad on a day trip to Wimereux and Le Touquet. The day be- fore we had prepared ourselves by writing mock letters in French to a member of our family and going over some useful phrases. Everyone was very excited! On the day of the trip, after a very early start (we arrived at school at 5am!), we boarded the coach and headed for the channel tunnel in Folkestone. We had a quick journey to Calais and from there, we drove to the picturesque town of Wimereux. Once there, we had a look around the market and bought a few things including olives and cheese. We didn’t have long there so after 30 minutes, we were back on the coach. After an hour’s journey, we arrived in the seaside town of Le Touquet. From the coach, we wandered through the town stopping occasionally to buy beach balls and other toys. We soon found the wide, sandy beach (the Paris Plage) and set up our picnic. Once we’d eaten, we played frisbee and football and some of us walked to the beach-side cafe to buy crepes and sweets. At the end of the day, we cleared away and packed up for the walk back into town. We bought sou- venirs and sweets to enjoy on the coach. The trip back gave us time to relax and remind ourselves of the fantastic trip we had shared. It was a really great day! Oliver Hume, Year 7