Gloucester RoadYoung Interpreters
The Young Interpreters club meets on a Tuesday at 12pm in the Family Room and is open to all pupils in KS2. A Young Interpreter is someone who helps new arrivals with English as an Additional language. They help newly-arrived pupils feel welcome and settled in their new school environment. The scheme also develops the confidence, communication and leadership skills of the Young Interpreters. It’s a way of valuing multilingualism whilst acknowledging and celebrating the skills of our learners.
At the beginning of the year, we had 5 sessions training the children up to develop their skills in becoming a Young Interpreter. This involved finding out about each other and the languages we speak, looking at different qualities a Young Interpreter needs to have, listening to a story in Italian and seeing how to make it more accessible and role-playing different scenarios that a Young Interpreter can help in. The Young Interpreters were then given a badge and matched with a buddy in Reception. It is a delight to see them supporting and playing with their buddies at lunchtimes. Young Interpreters also help to show new families around the school.
We are now developing a series of PowerPoints about different countries. These will be used to inform classes about the countries where new pupils come from. The Young Interpreters have been really excited to discover different facts about countries and design their PowerPoints. Here are some images that they have chosen to include so far:
On Wednesday 20th December, the Young Interpreters lead a whole-school assembly to explain about Christmas traditions from different countries (or other traditions in countries where Christmas is not celebrated).