International Work At St Bart's

French playground games on the school field. We played Quelle heure est-il M Loup ? Le facteur, Vieille Maman, Le chien et le chat, 1 2 3 Soleil and Pétanque.

Here is part of a french book called School and my Childhood. The pictures show the game La Marelle which we call, in English, Hopscotch. The other games we learnt about was Ampe, Pilolo and Oware (see photos in our research section) which are games from Ghana. Gonggi, from Korea, is Jacks. Indian Pachisi is Ludo and Sùwe from Nigeria is Hopscotch. We have had great fun with this research project.

Here are some of the parents’/grandparents’/aunts’/uncles’/carers’ comments on how they enjoyed sharing the childhood project with their child.

Students confidently explained their findings to their peers. The results were that some games are timeless and we still play them now. There are some games that have changed their names over the years . We also noticed that the same game in another country would sometimes be called a different name. For example the game Marbles in Swahili is Bano. We also noticed that our parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles and carers played outside a lot of the time and they did not have so many interactive games or play on their phones.

Our whole school childhood games project. Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 did some great research asking a member of their family or carer the question; What was your favourite childhood game? Here are some of the interviews.

Replies from our Pen Pals about our music activity

Replies from our Pen Pals about our music activity.pptx

Delicious Food from France photos from our link school

Delicious Food from France photos from our link school.pptx

Some great letters from France to our Year 6 class.

Glacier preservation work. Great research on a very important focus for World Water Day 2025.

Here are some well researched and informative leaflets written on glacier preservation.

Here are some great Glacier preservation Raps for World Water Day.

Here are some beautiful Cinquain poems about glaciers and how we can protect them. The first Cinquain poem was written in medieval France. French is also our chosen language so it is interesting to use this type of poem.

Here are some brilliant acrostic poems about glaciers.

Here are some great glacier preservation posters for World Water Day.

Glacier preservation activity. This map of the world shows the countries where there are no glaciers. The largest area of the world map is uncoloured, showing that so many countries have glaciers.

Here is some fabulous artwork showing glaciers that we need to protect and the animals too.

St Andrew's class have been learning more about their Pen Pals in France.

World Water Day 22 March 2025. This year the focus is Glacier Preservation. This is a whole school project. Here are some notes from our Key Stage 2 classes, they were taken whilst watching and listening to a PowerPoint in class.

Our pen pals sent some wonderful displays and writing about French food.

We sent a traditional English scone recipe to our pen pals in France, for them to try. We also wrote to our pen pals about our favourite food and about the French speciality dishes, we have been learning about.

Here are some photos of the delicious pancakes made.

This recipe was sent to all children, as a whole school activity. We discussed and translated the recipe in class and then they made their pancakes at home.

Here are some pen pals letters from France to St Martin Class.

Here are some letters to our pen pals explaining about where we live and which languages we speak .

We listened and learnt to sing the song Mbotama Ya Muana at Christmas time, which is in French and Swahili. We also listened to some pieces of music from Le Carnaval des Animaux by the French composer, Camille Saint Saëns and guessed which animal related to each piece of music. The third song we listened to was Bonne et Heureuse Année by Les Enfantastiques. We then wrote to our pen pals about the music we enjoyed and asked them what music they like.

La Chandeleur (Candlemas) en France 2 février.

La Chandeleur

St Patrick's class have been discussing how to protect our environment with their Pen Pals. Here are some of the fabulous replies from France.

St Theresa's class received these wonderful letters from their Pen Pals.

We have been celebrating the French Epiphany in class. The youngest member of the class sits under the table and the King or Queen in each class was chosen.

The whole school have been learning a Christmas song in French and Swahili. This of one of our classes singing Mbotama Ya Muana. There are two sentences in Swahili, Mbotama ya Muana means the Birth of Man and Mbotama ya Yésu which means The miracle of Jesus.

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Buon Natale

Here are some of our Christmas greetings we sent to our pen pals in France

We have been listening to French instructions on how to draw a Christmas Elf, un lutin de Noël.

Christmas Nativity play with Year 6 (with French scripts!)

Some of our work celebrating winter and the month of December.

We have been learning about Remembrance day in France. In England we wear a poppy (un coquelicot) and in France we wear a cornflower (un bleuet), to remember the people who bravely fought in the wars and also those who died. The poppy and the cornflower were the first wild flowers to grow on the battlefields when WW1 ended.

We wrote to our pen pals telling them what we do to protect our environment and we asked them what they do.

Here are some of our pen pal letters.

KS1 singing the song L'enfant de Paix, Child of Peace, in a whole school celebration assembly. They have been learning this song in class.

Presenting the Peace Poster winners with their certificates, in a whole school celebration assembly. Well done to everyone who took part, we had some amazing entries.

Peace, what it means to us.

At St Bart’s, we celebrated the International Day of Languages. All children were invited to participate in our whole school homework and create posters illustrating the theme of ‘Languages for Peace'. Peace is a cornerstone of our faith and is one of the seven Catholic Social Teaching principles. Jesus is sometimes called the Prince of Peace and peace is something very much needed in our world at the moment.

Our Language Leaders explained to the whole school about a very special homework to make a poster about peace. Here are some of the amazing posters.

We have been learning and writing Japanese numbers and some Japanese words.

We had a very special visitor. Hanna is a student from Japan. We learnt about Japan and how to write Japanese numbers. Hanna also made an origami crane - these are a symbol for peace!

The whole school have been learning about Japan. We have been looking at the culture, the geography, the language and we did some Maths. We learnt many interesting facts, please take a look at the PowerPoint that was shown in class.

Whole School Japan Project.pptx

When the Euro football championships started, classes had a sweepstake on who would end up winning the tournament. As we now know, Spain were the winners. The lucky ones who picked Spain are below. Well done all!

This week classes have been playing traditional French games in the field in their lessons. They played 1, 2, 3 Soleil, Quelle heure est-il M. Loup ? Vieille Maman and Pétanque.

Here are some of our lovely letters to our Pen Pals in France!

Wonderful Pen Pal Letters from France - March 2024

Here is a wonderful piece of art, from our partner school in France, wishing us all a Happy New Year 2024!

Celebrating International Mother Language Day 2024!

Celebrating International Mother Language Day 2024.pptx

Celebrating Chinese New Year 2024!

In French this week, Year 1-6 have celebrated Epiphany with the French tradition. It is called La fête des Rois (The festival of the Kings). We eat a special cake called la galette. The youngest child in your family (or class) sits under the table and chooses who has each piece. If you find la fève (the bean/charm) in your piece of galette you become le roi (the King) or la reine (the Queen) for the day!

Mosaic inspired by Miss Flower's International Club!

International School Award

We are very proud to have been awarded the International School Award.

The International School Award presentation was hosted by Scott McDonald, Chief Executive of the British Council 20 March 2023 at The Houses of Parliament, in recognition of St Bartholomew's international work and our fantastic French teacher Madame Ives collected it on our behalf.

"St Bartholomew's Catholic Primary School has successfully met the criteria for Accreditation for the International School Award. You have a very active partnership with a French school and have arranged a variety of excellent collaborative activities that will have created such enthusiasm for language learning in your pupils. You have also allowed your pupils with non-English mother languages to celebrate their diversity, which is very creditable. As you develop your international curriculum, you might consider introducing some opportunities for your pupils to learn about global issues, such as climate change and plastic pollution, and then for the pupils to take action. Sometimes a pupil committee can prove an effective way to get both pupils and their parents engaged. You might also consider introducing activities related to international calendar events, such as Fairtrade Fortnight or World Water Day. Such activities will allow your pupils to develop all aspects of their global citizenship, as well as their language learning. Well done and congratulations on the great international work that you have integrated into your school."