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| French Club |
Bryn Deri French Club
When and Where?
We meet in the Year 6 classroom on Wednesdays after school.
Year 5 and Year 6 meet from 3.35 – 4.35 pm.
Year 3 and Year 4 meet from 4.45 – 5.45 pm.
What do we do?
We learn questions and answers in French.
We ask for drinks and biscuits.
We play games, do quizzes and make things.
We do puzzles in workbooks or read and write in French magazines.
We sing French songs and act out scenes in French.
We work towards certificates, which are then presented in assembly.
We prepare to welcome our French friends from St Philbert de Grand Lieu, who come every summer.
How do I join?
In September, everyone who has already attended French Club is asked if they want to continue.
Then Madame Kirov goes into the Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 class-rooms, to ask if anyone else is interested and would like a letter to take home.
If you and your parents are interested, you bring the letter back to school with some money.
How much does it cost?
At the moment it costs £4.00 per lesson but you have to pay for a whole term in advance. Usually there are about eight to ten lessons per term.
The French Clubs are preparing to help welcome some special visitors! A Year 6 class from the French school Ecole-Jean-Rostand in the town of St Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, will be coming to stay in Radyr with some teachers and parents. Every year the head-teacher, Bernard Lebée brings a Year 6 class to stay with children from Bryn Deri Primary School. The children stay in pairs and are looked after by the families. There are many activities arranged for them by the school and by the families them-selves. This year, the group will arrive on the evening of 13th March and they will leave on 17th March.
Ecole Jean-Rostand has a website http://ecole.jrostand.free.fr/
Information/thanks can be found on the section “Voyage des CM 2” located on the left of the screen.
Click here to link to their website.
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French Play 2010
Thank you to Mrs Kirov again this year for all her support to Bryn Deri for producing a play for our French visitors. A selection of photographs can be seen by clicking on the link below.
Click here
On 19th March, the After-School French Clubs performed 'The French Revolution' in French. In the audience were the French children from Jean-Rostand Primary School in St Philbert, their teachers and some French parents. There were also many parents from Bryn Deri and also the Transition Coordinator from Radyr Comprehensive School, Richard Jenkins. Everyone was amazed at the standard of French!
Due to popular demand (from the actors), the hobby horses were used for the aristocrats and the bouncy horses for the vilains! 'King Louis XVI' and 'Marie-Antoinette' were entertained by a violinist and several flautists. The most popular scene was the execution scene : an aristocrat, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette all had their - papier-mâché - heads guillotined!
Welcome to Our French Visitors
Thank you to all our host families for agreeing to host this year, we hope you have a rewarding experience. Please let us know if we can improve any elements of the exchange. If you have any photographs all rewarding or amusing events that you would like to share with us please email the school and we may be able to add to our website. Click here to view some photographs.
Les Trois Mousquetaires
On 2nd July, eighteen Year 5 and Year 6 pupils performed ‘Les Trois Mousquetaires’ in French, with English narration. I wrote the script a few years ago, after reading the original French novel and watching the 1970’s film with Michael York, Faye Dunaway, Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch etc. From the French novel, I took some French phrases and the film gave me some ideas of how to make it look funny on stage.
As always, the Bryn Deri French Club had their say in the staging of the play. We began with everyone playing all the parts but at a certain point, we obviously had to start casting the characters. Our biggest dilemma was ... Leiah and Lucy both wanting to be Constance. So we invented Constance’s sister, who called herself Anaïs! (We have had a few girls called Anaïs come over from France in recent years).
The practices went ahead smoothly and noisily. The school staff very kindly put up the stage and the class teachers very kindly allowed their pupils to practise in class time. Then suddenly, two days before the performances to the school and to the parents, we heard that the ‘Duke of Buckingham’ had gone on holiday – typical English Prime Minister! Callum, already a Cardinal’s guard, bravely agreed to play the part (with the script surreptiously hidden beneath his cloak).
We only put the whole play together, including narration, musical interludes and moving of props, on the morning of the performances. Somehow it all came together. The whole adventure was enormous fun for all of us and the group worked brilliantly together, examples of the motto, “Tous pour un et un pour tous!” (“All for one and one for all!”) Many people were amazed by the standard of their spoken French!
Aladin
Just as the school was recovering from ‘Les Trois Mousquetaires’, I crept around the school furiously practising with individual members of the cast of ‘Aladin’. These were the eleven members of the Year 3/Year 4 French Club. They had had no practise at all the previous week, but they were keen to get it right!
The day before our performances on 9th July, I brought in the costumes hired from Marigold Costumes Ltd and the children were delighted (except for James, who couldn’t see himself in baggy purple or silver trousers). Aladdin himself practised his costume changes, from beggar to prince and back to beggar again. Ben had four layers of clothing to put on, in order to turn into Jafar!
On the day itself, we were all set for our one rehearsal of the whole play at 11am, including Mr Waters, who had agreed to accompany the children on the piano. However, there was a meeting going on all morning in the hall ... aargh! We managed to hold our rehearsal after lunch and finished just in time for the children to put on their costumes and perform to the school. No time to try putting up the Jasmine palace backdrop I had picked up at Asda!
The children were wonderful of course! After performing to the school, they had drinks and biscuits. Joanna, the ‘tapis magique’ had been ill the previous day and had come in especially to perform but was now ready for bed again, so we had to do without her for the next performance.
Then the parents arrived, as well as some governors and Carolyn Goodwin from CILT, the languages organisation. During the performance we had a very helpful Megan from Year 5 who switched the lights on and off during scene changes and magic moments created by the genie. This meant the audience didn’t have to see quite so much of me changing all the décor around on the stage.
Iwan the genie came to whisper to me just before the end and reminded me that the ‘tapis magique’ who was also the priest needed replacing. There was nothing for it but to go on stage myself to perform the wedding ceremony and cheer for everyone. Now I know how those poor children felt! What was I thinking of, getting them to sing solos in French up on stage? I couldn’t do it! Well done to everyone!
Gabrielle Kirov
Created on 2006-04-11 20:30:39 by gwaters
Updated on 2010-05-11 16:16:50 by webmaster
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