Translatathon 2018

June 2018 saw the first ever BRGS intra-school translatathon. Over 180 students took part in the event held at lunch time in the main hall and the atmosphere was fantastic!

Organised by Mrs O’Hara with the help of the whole MFL team, the idea was to raise the profile of the department and have a record number of students translating at one time. Translating is a new skill area on the current GCSE specification and classes have been learning how to translate over the course of the academic year.

Teams of up to 8 students from a mixture of year groups competed against one another and the clock to translate sentences from French to Spanish, Spanish to French, German to Spanish and French to German. The teams had students who are currently learning each of the three languages and worked together to submit their best possible translations.

Mr Wyton, Mrs Bowdler and Ms Jackson comprised the judging panel and were very impressed with the quality of language and team spirit. The staff team (comprising of all non-language teaching staff) made a valiant effort but were no match for the students, who won first second and third prizes.

The winning team, with 43 points were: Riccardo (Y10 French), Shireen (Y10 French), Megan (Y10 French) Emily (Y10 French) James (Y7 German and French), Connor (Y7 German and French), Molly (Y10 Spanish) and Roman (Y10 Spanish) who all received a £10 Amazon voucher each.

Connor said ‘I enjoyed it because it was fun and felt really good for winning. I spent my £10 on computer stuff and will be in it again next year to win again!’

Second and third place teams won chocolates for their efforts.

The event will now be an annual event, so start thinking about your team for next year!