La Francophonie was established on the 20 March 1970 and is a group of 88 states, member governments and observers that share the French language, as well as many values in common. It is an important player in international relations and represents 1 billion people, including 300 million Francophones, on five continents.

Its four missions are to promote the French language, the cultural and linguistic diversity; to promote peace, democracy, and human rights; to support education, training, higher education, and research and to develop economic cooperation aimed at supporting sustainable development.

French is the fifth most widely spoken language on the planet and the only one, together with English, to be spoken on five continents. French is the second business language of Europe and the third global business language in the world.

With 29% of its vocabulary of French origin and 29% of Latin origin (French’s mother tongue), the English vocabulary of today has a rich legacy of about 80,000 words of French origin.

Last week we celebrated Francophonie with some fun challenges and activities in order to mark this event so relevant to the English language.

The children in the Nursery had a French lesson in which they loved singing and playing repetition games in order to learn some colours in French.

The Reception, Year 1 and 2 children did a lot of singing and learned about other countries where people speak French.

The children from Year 3 to Year 6 learned where else people speak French and did some research on some Francophone countries.

Year 6 in Art have been looking at French artists, Robert Delaunay and Georges Seurat. They have been adding a pointillism technique to their own study of the Eiffel Tower and learning about its architecture.

Year 4 have been learning about French art in Geography lessons, specifically how the different landscapes of France have been depicted in art. They will then move onto learning about Pointillist artists, such as Seurat and Morisot.

Students from Year 3 to Year 10 took part in the third edition of Francovision. With performances ranging from solos to group singing, from dance routine to playing their own instrumental music, the students from all year groups enjoyed taking part in Francovision. Their peers voted and the results were the following:

In the Prep School:

• 3^rd place Sajidah in Year 4, with Le Bleu Lumière from Moana
• 2^nd place, a group formed by Alex, Krish, Ayaan and Rahul in Year 5, with Hakuna Matata
• 1^st place, a group formed by Khalid, Emby, Patience, Oscar and Salmanali in Year 6 with Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir from The Lion King

In the Senior School:

• 3^rd place Elisabetta in Year 10 with Je danse
• 2^nd place a group formed by Ali, Kyle, Ire, Fadil and Aryav in Year 9 with Sur ma route
• 1^st place a group formed by Jui, Jem, Poppy and Grace in Year 8 with Sur ma route

You can watch our winning Senior School Francovision entry here.

You can watch our winning Junior School Francovision entry here.

Students from Reception to Year 11 also took part in the second edition of the Great French Bake Off. The impressive number of entries showed students take on the challenge of baking a recipe specific to a French-speaking country. Ranging from yummy crêpes to laborious croissants, macarons and tarts, the students perfected their baking skills while trying some new recipes. They all looked delicious and it was very difficult to choose. Based on the presentation and the complexity of the recipe the results were:

In the Prep School:

• 3^rd place Parisa, Year 4, with French Éclairs
• 2^nd place Ruth, Year 6, with French macarons
• 1^st place Rayaan, Year 4, with Canadian Nanaimo

In the Senior School:

• 3^rd place Marcell, Year 8, with Clafoutis
• 2^nd joined place Lucy Pedrero and George, both in Year 8, both with French Macarons
• 1^st place Thomas, Year 7, with Croissants

The teachers also took the challenge of speaking some French in their lessons on Friday, the 19^th of March. Mrs Anacootee came first in the Prep School while in the Senior School there was a fierce competition between Mrs Charlton, Mr Troy, Mr Preston and Mrs Kamara who, in the end, won.

Many congratulations to everyone who embraced any of the challenges in order to mark this event so relevant to the English language.

Irina Barratt