BREAKING NEWS! - January 2025 - We have been successful in gaining the Foundation Level of the International Schools Award! 

"It was great to read how your activities linked to the whole curriculum and how learning international languages is part of your vision and whole school ethos..........It is positive to see that both adults and children in the school have developed language skills through your activities and that not only the languages have been taught but also their cultures. This helps learners develop themselves as ethically informed citizens of the world, one of the Four Purposes of the Curriculum for Wales. Involving pupils in sharing their knowledge in assemblies and involving outside partners from the consortia also helps raise the profile of international activities within Treorchy Primary. We very much look forward to seeing future applications from your school, as you continue to increase the number of international activities you undertake.......... Good luck with your continued and inspirational international work."

Our International Mission

Our aim is to enhance the awareness and use of languages within and beyond our school community, to develop an awareness of the connections between languages and their evolution and to foster global citizenship in our students, developing partnerships with schools in other countries in the future.

We provide rich and authentic experiences across the curriculum to learn about other countries, their people and their beliefs, traditions and cultures across the world as well as improving knowledge and skills which we feel is crucial for our pupils to engage with the wider world.    

All of our inquiries ensure that connected learning is planned across six areas of learning with a local, national and global perspective. We ensure that we look beyond Wales, learning about events, people and places in our wider world, particularly with our older learners. One of the key whole school overarching inquiries which celebrates this best is ‘Treorchy and Beyond’. Whilst nursery and reception pupils may focus on a small radius to explore, the older pupils have embraced the opportunity to link their learning to comparing life in other countries across the world.   

The Wonderful World of Languages

We work closely with the International Languages lead from Central South Consortia who supports us with ideas for raising language awareness and learning about cultures and traditions. Marina led an assembly and hosted class workshops with Yr 3-6 in the run up to International Day of Mother Languages. 

Children are regularly made aware of the importance of and benefits of learning languages through school based assemblies also. Spanish and French cultures and festivals are integrated into assemblies. The ‘Routes into Languages’ resources have helped to explore the origins of languages, cultural festivals and allow us to go on virtual visits to countries.

We also focus on a weekly Lightbulb language poster which is discussed and displayed in classrooms (Copyright - Lightbulb Languages.co.uk)

International Language Teaching and Learning

Here at Treorchy Primary, we feel it is important to expose children to an international language as early as possible. For the past 2 years, we have been delivering French and Spanish lessons to children in our school from Year 1 to Year 6. Some classes have also been learning British Sign Language. We use a range of strategies including songs, games, repetition and rote learning.

We also realise that learning languages open doors for children and allows them to communicate in different ways and make connections between languages. As a result, teachers are developing new ways of teaching languages which are being applied to the teaching of Welsh also.  

European Day of Languages 2024

We recently held a European Day of Languages event for our pupils across the school. Younger children sang songs in assembly and completed art activities. Older children Children were made aware of the importance of and benefits of learning languages through an assembly led by Mrs McKay and engaged in a range of activities across a range of languages and countries. This included looking at languages and playing language games with flags, finding countries on maps, class Blooket quizzes and an escape room.