Argyll & Bute schools were recently very busy celebrating Seachdain na Gàidhlig (World Gaelic Week) 2025

Click on the videos below to see what was happening.

Say a Gaelic Phrase

Take a look at some more schools around Argyll & Bute saying Gaelic phrases during Seachdain na Gàidhlig

Celebrating Scottish Gaelic across the globe: 24th February – 2nd March 2025

Join in with ‘Say a Gaelic Phrase Day’ to celebrate this special week. You can use this link to post a recording- Say a Gaelic Phrase There are sound files of example phrases to support.

Online daily workshops for primary school children of all ages, delivered by presenter, Joy Dunlop, featuring games, songs, stories and quizzes. There are sessions for Gaelic medium pupils and Gaelic learners. Register HERE

Gaelic place names competition  

(English) https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/gaidhlig/gaelic-place-names-competition/
(Gaelic) https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/gaidhlig/farpais-ainmean-aite-gaidhlig/

Click on the image to activate the document and then choose your language  for all information on times and dates.

Online Team Teaching- Empowering Teachers to Deliver Gaelic Learner Education

We aim to motivate pupils and support teachers to deliver Gaelic confidently as L2 or L3 by facilitating fun and engaging online team-teaching. Teachers receive live, on the job professional learning in language and language pedagogy and lead the learning for chunks of the live lessons. This building of confidence then enables teachers to consolidate the language learning with their pupils in their own class time using suggested follow-up resources and activities.

Gaelic ‘Live Lessons’ for L2 or L3 are starting week beginning 28th October-

Absolute beginners’ lessons take place on Wednesdays, 

13:30 – 14:05: 30th Oct, 6th Nov, 13th Nov, 20th Nov, 27th Nov, 4th Dec

Extension lessons take place on Fridays, 

9:30- 10:10: 1st Nov, 8th Nov, 15th Nov, 22nd Nov, 29th Nov, 6th Dec

Click HERE to sign up

There are a few remaining places for the GLPS (Gaelic Language in the Primary School) course. Interested teachers can complete this enrolment form

The course will commence on Thursday the 24^th October, 4-6:30pm and runs for 21 sessions, online via Microsoft Teams. The course equips teachers with both Gaelic language skills and teaching methodology to deliver Gaelic as L2 or L3 from early to 2nd level. A variety of topics, functional language and aspects of traditional culture, music and poetry will be explored.  The course is supported by GO GAELIC which provides comprehensive visual and audio resources and activities for classroom use.

Take a look at the exciting events that schools across Argyll & Bute organised to celebrate this year’s Seachdain na Gàidhlig.

6 week block suitable for P5-7

Ideal for schools who would like to introduce Gaelic as an L3 or deliver Gaelic as a short term standalone language. Also provides support for teachers who are new to teaching Gaelic as L3 or would like to refresh their skills in the language.

The lesson structure alternates between short bursts of direct teaching from the online teacher, followed by the class teachers leading their own class in a game. This format allows the learning to remain active and therefore learners are fully engaged.

 The aim is to motivate pupils and empower teachers to deliver 1+2 languages entitlement by delivering fun, engaging live online language lessons through a unique team-teaching model. This type of delivery provides on the job professional learning to alleviate workload pressures and helps teachers make the time for languages in a crowded curriculum.

Each lesson lasts approximately 40 minutes and will take place via GLOW Teams. All resources will be available to download in advance of the session and will be stored in the GLOW Team. The sessions will run on the following dates from 2- 2.40pm:

Wednesday 17th April 
Wednesday 24th April 
Wednesday 1st May 
Wednesday 8th May 
Wednesday 15th May 
Wednesday 22th May 

We will cover the basic topics such as Numbers, Introductions & Greetings, Family, Weather etc. throughout the course of the programme.

If you would like to enrol your class, please fill in this Google form – https://forms.gle/Nc8ZL5jNymGYrm648

We will also hold a short support session on Wednesday 20th March, 4-4.30pm for schools taking part. This will be important to make sure that you can access and navigate the Team prior to the course commencing and will give you a clear idea of how exactly the lessons will be delivered.

For further information about this Team Teaching model you can read the case study of the recent national pilot

Click on the image to see Hermitage Primary School’s fantastic video of all the language learning which took place during LWS

Hermitage Primary School participated in Languages Week Scotland, this year’s focus being Languages for a Suitable World.

Each stage chose a country/language to focus on from a particular continent:

• Primary 1- Scotland/Gaelic
• Primary 2- Germany/German
• Primary 3- Italy/Italian
• Primary 4- Peru/Spanish
• Primary 5- Brazil/Portuguese
• Primary 6- Japan/Japanese
• Primary 7- China/Mandarin

Throughout the week the children engaged in a range of exciting cross-curricular experiences based around their country and language.  These included:

• developing their mapping skills to identify their focus country on a map and compare it with their own location
• research and present the impact global warming is having on that particular country and changes that can be made to stop this
• discover how the various climates in different areas of the country impacts the use of the land in relation to animals and food production
• opportunities to listen and watch short stories and fairy tales in the native language
• learned and performed a traditional dance
• learned about a famous artist and recreated a piece of in that style.

In Primary 7, Mrs Guthrie taught the pupils about the impact of fast fashion on the environment as China is the biggest producer of clothes in the world as well as touching on the treatment of workers. This was something the pupils found particularly interesting as many of them were very familiar with the focused brands.

We also reached out to our wider school community to invite parents/carers and relatives with English as a second language to come in and share their native language and culture with the pupils. We were extremely fortunate to host speakers from different backgrounds including French, Gaelic, Brazilian and Chinese. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the presentations and getting the opportunity to deepen their understanding during a question time session.

Families were also encouraged to get involved in the language celebrations at home. We provided a homework grid for the whole school so families could work together and choose from a range of fun activities to get involved in. One of the popular choices was the Creative Kitchen Challenge where they had to research and make a dish from a country of their choice. In Primary 3, many pupils loved making their own pizzas at home as well as trying out some tongue twisters in Italian.

To end the week off, we had a Heritage Tuck Shop where pupils were encouraged to bake a sweet treat from their native country or country of their choice and bring it in to share with the rest of the school.

Overall, the week was a great success and the children thoroughly enjoyed learning about a new country, culture and language. They enjoyed showcasing their learning at a whole school assembly.

19th-25th February 2024

Here are lots of great resources to help you celebrate Seachdain na Gàidhlig

There is  a special new GLEANS challenge for Gaelic learners for SnaG

Traditional Tales Gaelic Competition For Gaelic learners and fluent speakers

Gaelic Medium & Gaelic Learners Planners and Resources

Gaelic learners

GME

5 week block of French online ‘Live Lessons’ commencing Wednesday 28^th February. Lessons will last 40 minutes- 1.30-2.10 pm.

These lessons are aimed at P4 learners upwards. The lessons can be used as consolidation of L2 French or as an introduction to French as an L3. The content can be accessed with no prior knowledge of French but the lessons are reasonably fast paced and include team games, which is why they are not suitable for younger learners.

These lessons have a team teaching element as the games are led by the class teacher in their own classroom. The learning is chunked throughout the lesson between learning online from the expert to consolidating the new learning through playing a game in the class. This keeps the learning active but the teachers feel well supported. All the resources used during the lessons have sound files embedded to support learners and teachers with the pronunciation of key language. Each lesson contains an element of French phonics which practitioners have found to be very beneficial to develop confidence in pronunciation. Suggested follow-up resources and activities are also provided to allow the class teacher to consolidate the learning during the week.

As multiple classes will be attending these lessons,  differentiation is not possible. Therefore, it is important that you decide whether the content of the lessons is suitable for your learners. For example, the content may be ideal for a P5 class which needs to revise and consolidate some simple French language. However, it wouldn’t suit a P7 class which had made steady progression in French from P1 onwards.

Content:

(each lesson will have a phonics element embedded)

Lesson 1-  Numbers to 16, Greetings & Feelings

Lesson 2- Numbers to 20, Days & Weather

Lesson 3- Numbers to 31, Months & Birthdays, Colours

Lesson 4- Numbers to 31, Family

Lesson 5- Pets & description (Colour, size)

 Please complete this FORM if you would like to sign up for these lessons.

 If you would like to learn more about this team teaching model please read this case study which describes last year’s national pilot of this initiative.

29th January-2nd February 2024

The theme for 2024 is “Languages for a sustainable world”. 

Resources for Schools

Daily Challenges

Opportunities from SCILT

The upcoming mini GLPS (Gaelic learners in Primary School) course provides an alternative learning pathway to the national GLPS course which takes place every year and runs for 20 weeks. This alternative comprises of 6 twilight sessions and culminates in a two day residential learning experience. This provides primary teachers  an opportunity to begin learning Gaelic without making the time commitment of a 20 week course. We will have the same tutors as deliver the national course, Yvonne Forrest and Jackie Mullen, two very experienced Gaelic teachers.

Course dates:

4.15-6pm (Zoom meetings)

Monday 15th January – Introductions & Names

Monday 22nd January – Feelings & Days of the week

Monday 29th January – Numbers

Monday 5th February – Where you live

Monday 19th February- Weather                                                                                                                     

Monday 26th February – Colours          

Two day residential course- Friday 1^st & Saturday 2^nd March (Location to be confirmed: Inveraray or Oban dependent on enrolment)

Argyll & Bute Council will cover the associated costs for this course (class cover, travel and accommodation)

Please get in touch with gwen.mccrossan2@argyll-bute.gov.uk to enrol.

Using Storytelling to Enhance your Language Teaching- Monday 20^th November, 3.45-5.15pm

French Christmas Language & Activities Webinar- Wednesday 22^nd November, 7:30-8:30pm

Active Approaches in Primary Languages- Monday 27^th November, 8-9:30pm

Digital Tools for Primary Language Learning- Wednesday 29^th November, 4-5pm

Click  on the image for  all information and to sign up to any of the sessions 

6 week course: Beginners’ Gaelic language and pedagogy: embedding Gaelic as L2 or L3 in primary schools.

Course dates: Mondays 4-5pm, 28^th August – 2^nd October 2023

To enrol on this course please click HERE

 Session 1: Introductions and Feelings

Session 2: Numbers and Days of the Week

Session 3: Weather and Colours

Session 4: Family and Pets

Session 5: The Body and Clothes

Session 6: Food & Drink and Hobbies

 Each session will complement these online Gaelic topic modules  (GLOW Username and password required) and give participants the chance to ask any questions about language issues or the resources. Each session will be based on two topics and explore the core vocabulary and language structures through classroom activities appropriate to all levels at primary.

Click here to see a video about the online Teacher’s course.

Monday 21^st August 3.45-4.45pm: Signposting Session for Gaelic  Resources & Support for L2 & L3 – Core learning & teaching websites, resources and planners.

This session will provide a presentation of classroom learning & teaching resources – Northern Alliance Sharepoint site, Go Gaelic & Gàidhlig nan Òg websites. We’ll also look at parental engagement through the Highland Council Digital Hub & Northern Alliance Family Learning Site

Ideal for new staff & a perfect way to refresh & update yourself about Gaelic as a 1+2 Language to plan for the full entitlement of L2 and L3 going forward in 2023-24.

This session will be online using Google meet. Please email gwen.mccrossan2@argyll-bute.gov.uk to sign up for this session.

Recently, schools in Argyll & Bute hosted French primary student teachers from our partner institution the University of Picardy .  It was wonderful to have the students back, in person. Although virtual links were maintained over the last two years, nothing beats face to face. Students had successful visits at Kirn, Sandbank, Hermitage and Dunoon primary schools. It was a fantastic opportunity for cultural exchange and sharing learning.

Kilmodan Primary School recently won first prizes in the National Poetry Competition Mother Tongue Other Tongue. This competition has two categories- Mother tongue for entries from native speakers of languages other than English and Other Tongue  for children to write poems in a language they are learning at school. Kilmodan PS won both the P1-4 and P5-7 category of Other Tongue and received Special commendation for other entries. Well done on this amazing success. You can see the winning entries here-

Kathryn Morley P5-7 Winning Entry           Mabel Sainsbury P1-4 Winning Entry

Orin McKenna- Special Commendation    Gemma Black – Special Commendation

Giles Leigh

World Gaelic Week

20th -26th February 2023

Here are some resources to help your school celebrate World Gaelic Week:

Primary and secondary planners and resources for Gaelic Learners and Gaidhlig

GLEANS Challenge for Seachdain na Gàidhlig

Thinglink from Highland Council

Please share the learning with gwen.mccrossan2@argyll-bute.gov.uk