Year 10 in Business Languages Competition- Feb 2012

Twenty Three Year 10 students visited the UK headquarters of Bouygues UK - a leading international construction company next to Waterloo Station in Central London. The students were given an Apprentice-style challenge; ‘How to better enhance links between the school and the community?’ The teams were invited to to give their presentations on Wednesday 22nd February 2012. Whilst at the Bouygues UK headquarters, the students were given a tour of all the departments and they were able to experience how being able to speak another language might open doors into working for an international company.

The Brief

To prepare a presentation to the Board of Directors on the possible links between a school and the community. This presentation will be carried out to a Board of Directors of whom some only speak French. Therefore it is necessary to ensure that some of your presentation and marketing materials are done in French so that they can understand. The presentation will last a maximum of 15 minutes and will have questions and answers afterwards.

The Presentations

The students quickly organised themselves into four groups. Each group came up with excellent ideas about how to make better use of the school's facilities for the community including; Saturday and evening classes, summer school sessions, languages classes, utilising all sports facilities and even giving over space to the Salvation Army. The students identified how these opportunities could be maximised in true business style, using surveys in the community, identifying transport links and even how schools could make a profit.

Each of the six presentations were delivered almost entirely in French. Over a number of weeks the students spent a very long time preparing their materials for their presentations and practising their French. Each presentation lasted about 10 minutes long with a PowerPoint slideshow and in one case, some excellent marketing 'flyers'.

The board of directors judging the presentations was extremely impressed by the quality of French prepared and spoken so well, the creative ideas presented and the overall enthusiasm shown by all the students. The decided that two of our teams would go on to the final of the competition where they will compete against other schools. The winning team from the final will be given an opportunity to visit the parent company Bouygues on a residential trip to Paris.

Congratulations to all the students that took part. Click here for more photographs.

Programme Aims

This activity was planned as part of the 'Business Language Champions' initiative, supported by the Government and aims to:

• To investigate ways that the school can become the heart of the community
• To consider new ways of learning / playing / creating and what is needed to support them
• To consider ways of marketing and communication to enhance links between the school and the community
• Encourage the learning of languages in a fun and interactive way.