Vive la difference at BBCET event

There was a twist on the classic spelling bee, when students from three Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust schools competed in a foreign language variation of the contest.

The Translation Bee was hosted by St Thomas More Catholic High School in North Shields, where the Year 7 French Modern Foreign Language students were joined by peers from fellow BBCET high schools Sacred Heart, and St Mary’s.

The event saw 12 students participate in a series of translation-based challenges, and was organised by St Thomas More Modern Foreign Language Teacher Ruth McEwan, with the help of colleague Emilie Trabichet.

“Although we had some great prizes, it wasn’t supposed to be a very serious competition, and all the rounds were varied,” she said.

“We started with an icebreaker activity, so that all the students could get to know each other. Sometimes students had to come up in front of our panel of judges, and, on other occasions, the students worked in pairs.

“The closest round was the Read Aloud Task. All of the students’ pronunciation was so good that the judges thought that we could have been in a French school.”

There was also the chance to try an unfamiliar language, thanks to two older students from Thomas More.

Mrs McEwan continued: “Our last activity was a Polish lesson given by Maja Maduzia and Daria Kurozcz in Year 10. They were amazing teachers, and we all learned how to give our opinions.

“We finished the morning off by giving out prizes to all of the competitors. Sacred Heart won the overall competition, and received Amazon vouchers as first prize.

“Next year we are hoping to make the Translation Bee bigger, with teams from all the secondary schools in the Trust.”

Ellie Chapman was one of the four Year 7 students representing Thomas More in the contest.

“I found the morning very fun and enjoyable,” she said. “We did lots of rounds where we got to hear the amazing French accents of our fellow competitors.”

Her team mate Jessica Oughton also enjoyed the experience.

“We had five rounds with a mixture of describing ourselves, reading aloud, describing a friend, translating into French, and adjective pairs, which we found the hardest,” she added.

“I found all of it vraiment amusant.”