Bridging Bilingualism
Project Overview:
Bridging Bilingualism is a project to investigate ways to ‘bridge’ the gap between children’s first and second languages. The project centres around teachers upskilling in programmes and strategies to teach a second language in a more effective and logical way for children. Holy Family Senior School has partnered with the following schools in Europe to participate in this project:
Visit to Bishop’s Conservatory Primary, Gozo, Malta December 2022 Bridging Bilingualism promotes and trains participants in the use of ‘Read Write Inc’ a phonics based programme. All schools received training in ‘Read Write Inc’ in Bishop’s Conservatory School, Gozo, Malta in December 2022. Ms L. Brennan, Ms Kinsella and Ms Walsh travelled to Malta to attend the training. Holy Family Senior School was given access to the full Read Write Programme and also received additional training on the programme on our return to the Ireland. We were also given full access to the programme resources. A decision was made to use the Read Write programme as a new programme for our Special Education Team. This will benefit many struggling readers in our school.
Actions taken after our visit to Gozo
Meetings were held between Ms Kinsella, Ms O’Reilly (SET Coordinator) and Ms R. Brennan (Principal) to discuss Read Write and it was agreed that 2-3 SET teachers would trial the programme from March to June 2023 and roll out to all SET Teachers beginning in September 2023. The teachers will be able to use Read Write as resources for support teaching and include in long and short term planning.
Participation in this Erasmus project has also provided the school with some funding to invest in the area of literacy. We have purchased guided readers to support both our struggling readers and to offer additional reading resources beginning initially with our 3rd Classes. We look forward to using these books in the 2023/2024 school year. It will be possible to use guided reading and Read Write targets in our School Support Plans and school plans.
Visit to Ireland March 2023 Holy Family Senior School were delighted to welcome 15 visitors from Greece, Romania, Malta and Spain to our school from the 28th to 30th March 2023. While they only could visit for 3 days we fit a lot into their time here. The visit began with a welcome ceremony where several classes and individual children in the school put on a wonderful display of all their Irish talents. The visitors saw songs, heard a poem, watched Irish dancing and a hurling display and they listened to some traditional Irish music played on the tin whistle and the harp. Our wonderful Student’s Council took charge of presenting the ceremony, and as always they did a fantastic job.
The visitors spent a lot of time visiting classrooms in the school to learn about the different ways that we teach and learn literacy here. They saw us using the comprehension boxes, the Building Bridges of Understanding programme and the visited our STAR centre as well. They were thrilled with everything that they saw and learned in the classrooms.
Finally our visitors experienced the cultural side of Ireland with a visit to Emo Court and the Rock of Dunamase in County Laois. We also brought them to experience the Medieval city of Kilkenny where they enjoyed a tour of the Castle!
