Jessica Norrie, primary languages teacher and former Primary Languages Consultant for Redbridge local authority.

In June we held a Spanish day at the infants school where I teach EAL part time. The idea was to celebrate the success of introducing Spanish in Year 1 the previous term. This article details how we organised our day. If you are considering holding a language day yourself, hopefully this will help with the planning. The preparation work involved is not to be understimated but the benefits are huge!

People involved

Many different people were involved in helping on the day:

• Two local secondary schools. Each school sent a Spanish teacher with a group of four Year 8 pupils to teach 'I spy' and some action songs (this took alot of emailing to arrange).
• The LA MFL consultant told a story and taught a song to a couple of classes.
• An NQT I knew from another school and who had specialised in primary Spanish during her PGCE organised a fashion show. She used old Real Madrid and Barcelona football kits my son had when he was younger, an enormous sombrero, a mantilla and a fan. Her involvement pleased the Heads of both schools as it was CPD for her and help for us.
• A parent from Chile made a Powerpoint presentation about Easter Island and helped out generally in the classroom all through the day.
• My daughter who is studying Spanish at university helped out all day with language and pronunciation. Fortunately she had already been CRB checked within the past year but this is something important to check with all helpers.

In addition to this support, we paid for an excellent flamenco dancer to run several 30 minute workshops with each class over two days, including a 20 minute session with the nursery children.

Preparing children, parents and staff

A week before the event, we sent home a letter with a Spanish quiz for families to answer and enter into a competition at a cost of £1. We also asked if children could wear red and yellow or shirts and trousers with coloured sashes on the day. I attached a line drawing of flamenco dancers to demonstrate the sort of clothing but stressed parents should not spend too much money - in the event there were some amazing home made costumes. At that week's staff meeting, I gave out a book of timetables and activities.

Activities

We decided to keep the activities based more on the culture of Spanish-speaking countries rather than the language itself as almost all the staff  were complete beginners (one has a Spanish GCSE and I have A level) and the children, though learning incredibly fast, were also just starting out.

During the day

We had a carousel of activities, each lasting about 30 minutes. These included:

• The flamenco workshop (which ran the next day too).
• Presentations from our various visitors - one visitor per class.
• Children answering the register in Spanish.
• Year 1 children singing songs and teaching greetings to children in the nursery.
• Parachute games on the field, using activities simplified from a resource pack produced by Hove Park School. 
• A treasure hunt around the school using flags from Latin American countries.
• Making pan con tomate (tomato bread) in the classrooms - there are several recipes on the internet.
• Making non-alcoholic sangria in the classrooms - again, the internet has several recipes.
• Making and decorating fans.
• Colouring in and hanging up flags.
• Teaching very easy songs such as Hola Hola Buenos Dias (a song from Early Start Spanish) and Heads, Shoulders... 
• Looking at songs from Hispanic countries on www.mamalisa.com.   
• Various interactive whiteboard activities - I gave the teachers links to websites such as language learning through fairy tales in Spanish from Northumberland LA and some very simple games from Languages Online. It was interesting that my completely non-specialist colleagues then found other, often better, websites for themselves.
• Line drawings of flamenco dancers for children to colour and decorate with sequins etc.
• An end of day assembly when we presented quiz prizes (picture dictionaries from a remainder bookstall in the market) and looked at each other's costumes. We also had a presentation from a salsa dance group in Year 5 of our linked junior school and all Year 1 sung a song - the Un Pulpito song by Charlotte Diamond which was mentioned to me on the Primary Languages Forum. I added lots of actions to the song and it has been an enormous hit with Year 1, if only I could get it out of my head!

In the evening

13 families came to a Spanish fiesta evening (6-8pm) where I taught some numbers and colours. We then played some easy language games such as strip bingo, made more fans, drank sangria (still non-alcoholic) and ate tacos, salsa and guacamole dips, tortilla wraps with beans and corn and watermelon. The original idea was tapas but dietry requirements precluded pork, ham, shellfish, nuts or egg!

Entry was by ticket only at £5 for a family of four. We stressed that we needed to know numbers in advance - it might have been better attended but the timings clashed with an Andy Murray match at Wimbledon (I had planned for avoiding World Cup football but not tennis!).

Costs

Including the nursery, we have 350 children in the school. The total cost of the whole event to the school was about £445: £330 for the flamenco workshop and the rest on food, drinks and prizes, although I think we overbought a little on the food. Revenue from the quiz and fiesta tickets was about £100.

Outcomes

The day was extremely successful on many fronts; developing links with other schools (it was wonderful seeing four Year 8 boys singing action songs to a reception class), encouraging children's enthusiasm and enjoyment, making Year 1 feel a bit special, keeping fit, music and rhythm, cross-curricular CPD and demystifying language learning - I treasure the feedback from TAs who all said they themselves had learned such alot.

The evening fiesta was the Head's idea and was enjoyed by all the parents and children who came. It did take a lot of hard work and planning and it was pretty tiring to run on top of the day, despite lots of help from colleagues to prepare food.

With hindsight, I think I would limit the event to the day as it was unclear whether the evening aimed to be educational or purely social. Alternatively, I might follow up on the advice of a friend from another school who suggested asking parents to bring the food themselves.

Following up

A fortnight later, we have made books and a display for each class with the photos from the day. We have also written thank you letters and drawn pictures for our visitors. All the children still greet me in Spanish and madden me with the Un Pulpito song! One or two even seem to think I'm personally involved in Spain winning the World Cup!