Activities for Schools

This initiative offers free Taster Sessions for Schools including Arabic, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Portuguese, Quechua, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Ukrainian, Comparative Literature, Interpreting, Linguistics, Translation.

Monday 10th November 2025.  Free. For young people aged 7-11. Booking required.

Monday 10th November 2025 at 4pm. Free. Webinar. Booking required.

Michael Slavinsky is the founder of Languages For All, a charity which exists increase the number of modern language students at A-level and degree level from state schools. Over the last two years the project has brought together schools to share teaching and collaborate on trips, thereby making A-level languages more exciting, appealing and accessible to more students. The collaboration involves universities in a way that changes languages from being just a subject studied, to a pathway to a top degree. In the session Michael will share three practical and strategic lessons learnt from the work so far and invite schools and universities to consider whether they could set up a hub of their own, in their region, to do the same.

Tuesday 11th November 2025 at 12pm. Free.  Webinar. Booking required.

The Covid-19 pandemic adversely affected early childhood development across multiple domains, including physical, cognitive, socioemotional, and language skills. UK data indicates that a greater proportion of under-fives did not meet their expected milestones between 2020 and 2022, compared to pre-pandemic levels. 

These impacts were especially pronounced among the least privileged in society, with children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and those with additional needs falling further behind their peers. Despite targeted fiscal and pedagogical efforts to support educational recovery since the pandemic, there has been limited progress in closing these gaps. 

Early years education has significant power to level the playing field. This talk will review the progress of the national expansion of childcare entitlements. We will discuss recommendations for the rollout to ensure that families can make maximum benefit of quality early years education. 

Tuesday 11th November 2025 at 4pm.  Free. Webinar. Booking required.

Wednesday 12th November 2025 at 4pm. Free. Webinar. Booking required.

The Commission on the Future of Oracy Education reported last year. Oracy is about enabling every young person to leave school with the confidence to speak for themselves and listen to others in ways that will allow them to flourish as human beings. 

The teaching of oracy entails the intentional cultivation of the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through speaking, listening and communication. It comprises three interrelated, overlapping and mutually reinforcing components:
i) Learning to talk, listen and communicate: the development of children’s speaking, listening and communication skills.
ii) Learning through talk, listening and communication: the use of talk or dialogue to foster and deepen children’s learning.
iii) Learning about talk, listening and communication: building knowledge and understanding of speaking, listening and communication in its many contexts 

Register here

Tuesday 18th November 2025, at 4pm. Free. Webinar. Booking required.

How can the study of languages and global cultures help you to stand out in the job market? How can you make a real difference across different countries and continents? Do the media industry, diplomacy, international business and global organisations value these skills?

This talk will reflect on what multi-linguists have achieved in various professions, and on why employers value foreign language skills and inter-cultural awareness.

Register here

Thursday 13th November 2025 at 7pm.  Free. Webinar. Booking required

Your multilingual students are a powerful asset. Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori, author, teacher, and consultant, shares with you practical tools to empower EAL learners, develop a global mindset in every student and a school culture that values multilingualism. 

In this session, you will discover a graphic novel that invites students’ languages and cultures into the classroom, and a certification teaching them about cultural differences and empowering them to be actors in the creation of a school culture that promotes empathy and understanding between different cultures. 

Register here

Wednesday 19th November 2025 at 4pm.  Free. Webinar.  Booking required.

This event is for teachers who are interested in bringing languages to life (and other subjects !) by working with a school in another country and connecting with native speakers. Come and hear how to find a partner school, discover great ideas for joint projects, find some new resources and learn about the International School Award.

Organised by British Council with Leeds City of Languages.

Bring the World Into Your Classroom

Tuesday 18th November 2025 at 9am. Free. Webinar. Booking required.

Developed to inspire pupils to progress with languages and choose them at GCSE, this webinar will introduce three speakers from Leeds who will talk about their own language learning journey, the languages that they have learned, where they have travelled to, the skills that learning languages can bring and how they use languages in their work.

This event is aimed at secondary pupils and their teachers and will help inform them as pupils consider their GCSE options. An accompanying pupil booklet includes activities for pupils to do before and after the event. We welcome questions from the audience.

Organised by British Council with Leeds City of Languages.

Where can languages take me?

Friday 21st  Nov 2025 at 12pm.  Free. Webinar. Booking required.

In this session Megan Bowler (Oxford), Emma Cayley (Leeds and UCFL), and Charles Forsdick (Cambridge and BA) will discuss the recently published 

Higher Education Policy Institute’s report on the deep challenges faced by language educators. The discussion will focus on key elements in the report and the implications of the current situation for the future. The discussion will also focus on the actions that the subject community as a whole needs to pursue to change the existing situation.

External Event hosted by the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London.   For full event details see the event on the ILCS website.

Register for the event here

Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multi-lingual poetry project, created as a Laureate Education Project by Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE (UK Poet Laureate 2009-2019) to celebrate cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in schools across the UK. This initiative originally began running in the North West, coordinated by the Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Met University.

After a successful launch of the competition in Leeds as part of Leeds Languages Week 2024, we are delighted to announce that we will be running the competition again this year, giving even more students the opportunity to celebrate languages and share their creativity through poetry.

We welcome submissions from students aged 8-18, with the deadline for entry Friday 24th October 2025.

Schools can submit up to 6 entries per competition (i.e. up to 6 Mother Tongue entries, and up to 6 Other Tongue entries).
Full details of each competition can be viewed on the competitions page.

Unleash the power of language and creativity - the Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators, presented by Queen’s College’s Translation Exchange, invites students aged 11–18 across the UK to reimagine literary texts through translation. Free to enter, the Prize offers contests in French (into English and Welsh), German, Italian, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish - and equips teachers with free, high-quality teaching resources to spark passion for multilingualism in the classroom. Running from 2 February to 27 March 2026, this competition honours the legacy of Anthea Bell, celebrates linguistic excellence, and seeks to inspire the next generation of translators. Enter now and give your students the chance to shine on a national stage! 

For more information: Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators - The Queen's College, Oxford 

The National Language Competition (NLC) is a virtual competition for teams of 13-14 year olds from around the UK to compete against each other to solve language-based challenges and score points. 

The overall winners of the National Language Competition are then invited to GCHQ’s headquarters in Cheltenham to receive their trophy. 

With the NLC, GCHQ aims to inspire language learning by encouraging students to discover their aptitude for learning languages. 

The NLC runs annually in November. The 2025 competition will take place from Monday, 17 November to Friday, 21 November. 

More information here.  

The National Spelling Bee continues for Year 7s (French, German and Spanish)!

There are 4 stages with 50/100 words to learn at each stage (300 altogether). Following latest SLA research - a fun, motivating way of getting your Year 7s to learn all that vocab they need to know.  For more information visit the website:

National Spelling Bee Competition

or contact [email protected] for more information.

The International School Award recognises schools that embed global awareness and international learning at the heart of their curriculum and school culture. Whether you’re just beginning to build international connections or already running collaborative projects across borders, there’s a level of the award to suit your stage: from Foundation through Intermediate to Accreditation (and re-accreditation) levels. To apply, schools submit their details via the British Council’s online platform, setting out an Action Plan of international and curriculum-based activities, then at the end of the school year provide an Impact Evaluation showing how those plans have influenced students, teachers and the broader school community. Benefits include a certificate, media support, expert feedback, and for advanced levels a logo and accreditation valid for three years. We encourage all schools wanting to strengthen their global dimension to apply—start planning your international projects now and join the community of schools building a more globally connected education. 

For information see here.  

The Stephen Spender Trust is inspired by the cultural activism of Stephen Spender, poet and champion of international literature.  On their website you can find a range of initiatives that celebrate multilingualism and literary translation.  For access to their resources, please visit:

Stephen Spender Trust – Multilingual Poetry and Storytelling

Exploring & Celebrating African Languages is a series of self-led interactive in-class presentations that celebrate and explore 4 African languages spoken by communities in the North East and globally.  The languages chosen do not represent all of the major African languages.

Please email Caroline or Ulfet from the Language Collaboration Project at [email protected] to request a pack.

Check the Language Educators Online - NCLE.

Here you can access Joe Dale's  summary of the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE) launch of the brand new Language Educators (LEO) free professional development platform:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7381753973172510720/

Here you can access the NCLE Webinar: Language Educators Online, NCLE's new CPD platform:

NCLE Webinar: Language Educators Online - 8th Oct '25 on Vimeo

Joe Dale's AI tools menu for MFL and cross-curricular teaching resources:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WYfMT7ORkYWgTel-q7L6ftBJeAF3XWw5cq-kz6MGC6k/edit?usp=sharing

The Linguistics in MFL project is making the case for linguistics in school-based language teaching. The team have co-created a number of resources with experienced teachers, which you can access here: Linguistics in MFL Project.