Earlier this month, the Etherow Language Hub brought partner schools together at Cheadle Hulme High School, as they hosted an event to celebrate Home, Heritage and Community Languages through poetry.
It was attended by around 100 students and pupils from ages 9-17, from 8 different schools across the Etherow Language Hub network, Laurus Trust and local primary schools.
Students and pupils collaborated to write poetry and prepare entries for the Mother Tongue Other Tongue poetry competition, which is a multi-lingual poetry project celebrating cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools in the UK – run in the Northwest by Manchester Metropolitan University. Over 25 languages were represented by students, many of whom are multi-lingual.
Tom Coltman, Hub Lead for Etherow Language Hub, spoke after the event:
“We believe it’s crucial to celebrate the rich tapestry of languages spoken in our schools beyond English. Hosting this event was a fantastic opportunity for students and pupils to form new friendships, learn about each other’s cultures, and explore the power of poetry in expressing their identities as bilingual or multilingual individuals.”
The Etherow Language Hub is part of the NCLE Language hub programme, which has a mission to revitalise language learning in state-maintained primary and secondary schools and build a collaborative network to achieve this goal.
Learn more about the Etherow Language Hub: www.chhs.org.uk/language-hub