Janette Kelso: SCILT
Lynne Robinson: Kilwinning Academy
Kilwinning Academy
Business Language Champion
Programme
• Helps schools and businesses to build partnerships
through languages
• Brings the relevance of languages in workplace to life
• Raises learners’ awareness of languages in the workplace
• Inspires and motivates language learners to continue
studying languages
Who is involved?
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Hospitality and catering industry
Textile industry
Manufacturing and engineering companies
Retail sector
Food manufacturers
Tourist industry
What is involved?
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Employee visits to schools
Schools visits to local employers
Business project in classroom
Collaborative work with other subject areas
Advice and support to deliver projects
Getting started!
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Stakeholders meet and discuss ideas
Launch event takes place
Pupils visit business
Pupils set a task to complete in the language
Final project judged by business
Kilwinning Academy and the Scottish Football
Association
Background
• Faculty Head of Modern Languages at St Modan’s High
School
• Culture shock!
• Need to promote the validity and relevance of
languages in this day and age.
• SCILT to the rescue!
Curriculum Context
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Aim to have all pupils leaving at end of S3 with Unit
qualification in 1 or 2 languages.
Languages for Work Purposes Unit at N4.
Course tailored to the needs of pupils – N3 or N4.
Dove-tailed beautifully with the Business Language
Champions project.
The Project
September: Initial discussion
October: Launch event – key note speaker from
SFA. Carousel of 5 workshops
November: Visits to Scottish Museum of Football
January:
Development of final product
March:
Product completed and judged
Launch Event
• Inter-disciplinary links with Health and Wellbeing –
Home Economics and PE
• SFA input – Jim Fleeting and Kilmarnock FC
• SCILT input – workshops based on specific industry
areas
• Museum of Football
• Visit to Hampden and Museum of Football
• Poster competition - Commonwealth Games
La chasse au trésor
Positive Impact
• Huge increase of numbers choosing French at end of S3.
• Change of attitudes – not just pupils!
• Credibility and validity of languages in the world of
work…
• “I want to do the SFA Referee Course in S5 and did not
realise how much having a language would help with this
as a career”
• “Who knew there were so many bits of the hospitality
industry were French!”
Positive Impact
“I want to study accounts at university but am going to
do a language with it, as I’ll get more job opportunities.”
“I didn’t think French would ever be of any use to me.
Now I want to get at least one language in S4.”
“The trip to Hampden really opened my eyes about how
jobs in Scotland had a language need too.”
Straight from the horse’s
mouth!! (1)
Straight from the horse’s
mouth!! (2)
Jim Fleeting, Head of Sports Development
“I believe young people of today are open to so much more
than their parents or guardians. They also have the huge
pressure of their peers. Experience is a wonderful thing and it is
sometimes hard to sell that experience, but when I visited the
school, I set out to engage them to consider all the options they
have in front of them.”
Colin Lobban, Scottish Museum of Football
“We became involved in the languages project at
Kilwinning Academy as a means of perhaps increasing
our output in languages, and also as a means of
communicating with a local school on the importance
and usefulness of languages in a visitor experience
environment. We have found the experience to be a
rewarding one ….”
The final outcome
The final outcome
Contact details
janette.kelso@strath.ac.uk
gw08robinsonlynne@ea.n-ayrshire.sch.uk