A GROUP of ten young linguists from King’s Ely Junior who composed songs in French and Italian to celebrate the Olympics have scored a double success.
Children from schools all over the country were set the challenge of writing songs in any of five European languages: French, Italian, Spanish, German and Greek. King’s Ely Junior has just been announced as the winner of the French section and runner-up in the Italian section.
The French song was written by Emily James, Isabelle Parris, Eve Noble, Sabina Ray and Oliver Wilkinson. The Italian entry was the work of Asia Choudhry, Juliet Koopowitz, Tom Oldham, Harriet Pinto and Isla Taylor.
Entries came from hundreds of pupils from schools all over Britain who belong to Arsenal Double Club – an education project that encourages boys and girls to engage in languages through football. It has won a prestigious European Award for Languages.
“The Arsenal Double Club is an innovative project which has really caught the imagination of our young linguists,” said Richard Whymark, Head of King’s Ely Junior. “I am delighted for them and for Marie Delaveau, head of Key Stage 3 Modern Foreign Languages, that they have been so successful in the Olympics Song competition.”
Pupils have been invited to take part in a professional recording session in London at the end of March and film a video.
“They are all looking forward to making the recording and the video and they are especially excited about the chance to visit the Emirates Stadium,” said Mr Whymark.
The Arsenal Double Club project has been so successful that ten other football clubs have now run pilot language projects following the Arsenal model.
On song: King’s Ely Junior linguists who wrote songs in French and Italian to celebrate the Olympics for an Arsenal Double Club competition.
The winning French team.
The runners-up in the Italian song section.