Challenges & Competitions
Latest Competitions
Primary Bee – For Year 5 & 6 – French, German and Spanish
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 08:00 to Friday 26 July 2024 – 17:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: National
THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRIMARY BEE
The aim of the Primary Bee is for students in who have started learning a foreign language ab initio in KS2 to practise and improve their vocabulary, pronunciation and memory skills in the target language (French, Spanish and German).
Spelling Bee – For Year 7s – French, German and Spanish
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 09:30 to Sunday 21 July 2024 – 16:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: Regional with the National Final at Cambridge University
The National Spelling Bee continues for Year 7s (French, German and Spanish)!
With word lists informed by the latest research, the aim of the Spelling Bee is for students in Year 7 who are learning a foreign language to practise and improve their vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and memory skills in the target language.
Translation Bee – For Years 8 & 9
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 09:45 to Sunday 21 July 2024 – 17:00
Event Type: Competition
Region: East of England
Location: National
Offering direct progression from the Spelling Bee competition comes the Translation Bee. Building on the requirements of the new KS3 curriculum, with its emphasis on translation and grammatical manipulation etc, the aim of the Translation Bee is for students to practise and improve a range of skills vital to preparation for starting a GCSE course: vocabulary, pronunciation, memory, verb conjugation, tenses, sentence formation.
Language Leader Award
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 11:00 to Friday 19 July 2024 – 00:00
Event Type: Award
Region: East of England
Location: National
The Language Leader Award helps students (usually, though not exclusively Year 9s) learn to lead, using language teaching as the medium. You teach your leaders to teach languages and they team-teach them in their feeder primary schools. Throughout the programme they develop their leadership skills, reflecting and growing in confidence while enhancing their generic, transferable skills whilst also acting as ambassadors for languages in their schools.
Languages Challenge
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023 – 01:00 to Friday 26 July 2024 – 01:00
Region: East of England
Location: National
The Languages Challenge gives your (usually) Year 7s the chance to complete all sorts of language-based tasks so they can improve their knowledge and understanding of other languages and cultures.
LinguaMaths
Routes into Languages Competitions
Date: Tuesday 26 September,2023 – 16:15 to Friday 26 July 2024 – 16:15
Event Type: Award
Region: East of England
Location: National
LinguaMaths is a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) project with Maths being taught in the target language. There are 9 tests altogether, corresponding to NC levels.
Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators from Queen’s Translation Exchange
Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators from Queen’s Translation Exchange
University of Oxford
The Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators is a UK-wide creative translation competition for students aged 11-18 studying French, German, Italian, Mandarin and Spanish. The competition also runs from French into Welsh.
Please click here for more information.
The Word is Not Enough
The Word is Not Enough
Tuesday 19th March 2024
At a secret location in Birmingham
9.20 until 3.30
One of our most popular challenges, the Year 10 students will be working on tasks based on GCHQ scenarios in French, German or Spanish at a secret location in Birmingham. Please note that priority will be given to schools with more than 25% Pupil Premium.
The Word is Not Enough
The Word is Not Enough
Monday 18th March 2024
At a secret location in Bath
9.20 until 3.30
One of our most popular challenges, the Year 10 students will be working on tasks based on GCHQ scenarios in French, German or Spanish at a secret location in Bath. Please note that priority will be given to schools with more than 25% Pupil Premium.
SCOOP!
SCOOP!
Friday 1st March 2024
St. Paul’s School for Girls, Birmingham
9.20 – 3.30
SCOOP! is a fast-paced language and journalism event for students studying French, German or Spanish in Years 12 or 13. It will challenge their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. We are happy to accept individual students and will allocate them to teams with a common language.
Careers with Languages Webinar
Careers with Languages Webinar
Friday 2nd February 2024 – Virtual
2.00 until 3.00
This is a short one-hour event at 2.00pm to encourage take up of languages at GCSE, A Level and beyond. We will have 4 different speakers showcasing how languages are used in careers and open up opportunities. It is particularly aimed at Years 9 to 11, but we will welcome any students that you wish to bring. This webinar will be recorded if you would like to show it at another time.
Careers with Languages Webinar
Careers with Languages Webinar
Friday 19th January 2024 – Virtual
2.00 until 3.00
This is a short one-hour event at 2.00pm to encourage take up of languages at GCSE. We will have 4 different speakers showcasing how languages are used in careers and open up opportunities. It is particularly aimed at Year 8 and Year 9, but we will welcome any students that you wish to bring. This webinar will be recorded if you would like to show it at another time.
Sweet Marketing
Sweet Marketing
Tuesday 19th December 2023 – Virtual
4 time slots available during the day
We are inviting you to book a one hour slot for a fun end-of-term activity for your students of French, German or Spanish called SWEET MARKETING aimed at Years 9 – 10. Each slot will be for an individual school only, and for a maximum of 30 students.
Spread the Word
Spread the Word
Monday 18th December 2023 – Virtual
4 time slots available during the day
We are inviting you to book a one hour slot for a fun end-of-term activity for your students of French, German or Spanish called SPREAD THE WORD aimed at Years 8 – 9. Each slot will be for an individual school only, for a maximum of 30 students.
European Challenge
European Challenge
Friday 15th December 2023 – Virtual
9.00 until 12.00
Languages together with Marketing aimed at Years 10 and 11. Students learning French, German or Spanish will be planning to take a typically British product to a European Trade Fair.
Glastonbury Goes Global
Glastonbury Goes Global
Wednesday 6th December 2023
Reed’s School, Cobham, Surrey
9.20 until 3.30
An exciting event based on languages and the music industry for Year 9 students of French, German or Spanish to encourage them to opt for a language at GCSE.
Careers with Languages Webinar
Careers with Languages Webinar
Monday 4th December – Virtual
2.00 until 3.00
This is a short one-hour event at 2.00pm to encourage further study or use of languages beyond school. We will have 4 different speakers showcasing different ways in which to use languages. It is particularly aimed at older year groups (16 – 18 year olds), but we will welcome any students that you wish to bring. This webinar will be recorded if you would like to show it at another time.
The Law of Languages
The Law of Languages
Tuesday 28th November
Sheffield High School
9.20 until 3.30
We are delighted to be teaming up with Fragomen LLP for this brand new event for Years 12 and 13. You have frequently told us that languages and law would be a good event topic for you, so here it is! We can accept any number of individual students studying French, German or Spanish and we will group them together into teams.
A Spoonful of Languages….
A Spoonful of Languages….
Friday 24th November – Virtual
9.00 until 12.00
Based on the work of the multilingual World Health Organisation, students will be helping the world’s youngest citizens understand more about their health. This event is aimed at Year 9 to encourage them to take up a language at GCSE. It will be a half day virtual event allowing students to be really creative with their language use.
Annual Competitions
French Pop Video
Organised by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, students compete in age-group categories across primary and secondary
Have Your Say
Have Your Say is a speaking competition for pupils in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10
German Debating
Debating competition for Year 11 and 12 organised by the Goethe-Institut, London
UK Linguistics Olympiad
Competition for any age, any ability level where competitors have to solve linguistic data problems
Strictly Speaking
An outline of how to run a Strictly Speaking Poetry Recitation competition within a class, your school or between a group of schools, complete with sample anthologies in three languages.
Strictly in Isolation
The Strictly Speaking competition as modified for use remotely.
Poetry Live
'Poetry Live' is a recitation competition run for local schools at St Mary's University, Strawberry Hill. Here you will find documentation to help you run your own version according to your context.
Foreign Language Spelling Bee
Competition for Year 7 to practise and improve vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in French, German or Spanish
Foreign Language Translation Bee
Competition for Years 8 & 9 to practice and improve vocabulary, spelling and memory skills in French, German or Spanish
Annual EDoL Writing Competition from ALLNE
ALLNE, NfLNE and partners are once again organising the annual European Day of Languages Competition for Schools and in 2022 it is again open to anyone!
German Language Competitions
The 2022 DAAD/IMLR German Language Competition focussed on coming together, celebrating friendship and collaboration between people, countries and institutions beyond borders and across cultures.
Please click here for full details.
European Day of Languages
ALLNE, NfLNE and partners are once again organising an annual European Day of Languages writing competition for Schools, and in 2023 it is once more open to the whole country!
The organising committee invites language learners in any key stage to create a piece of text in a language they are learning on the theme: Treasure.
Please click here for full details.
Strictly Speaking 2022 - a school / student review
Review of a Strictly Speaking celebration in German 2022
Strictly Speaking is a poetry recitation event, with a class round of a rehearsed poem, and, for those who proceed to a second round, an unseen poem. An outline of how to run your own event is available to download here.
As teachers, we were really delighted to see how positively and enthusiastically the students participated in the event. All 120 of our Year 8s joined in, and in the class rounds they all had a chance to perform their poem and listen to each other. The students demonstrated great creativity in performing the poems. Some participants sang or rapped their poem to great effect, and all of them enjoyed the Year group final. It was a really fun celebration of German poetry.
Oscar Year 8 (winner)
When I first stepped on stage I felt overwhelmed and extremely nervous. After I performed my first poem though, the crowd went wild, and this gave me the confidence to then perform my mystery poem. Thinking of a musical rhythm was a great way to pronounce and deliver the words in an easier but sophisticated way.
When my name was called out as the winner I was astonished and extremely happy, I was very grateful, and loved performing.
It was a great achievement and am really hoping to continue my German into the future.
Alfie Year 8
I found the German speaking competition something that really brought everyone taking German together, I can remember after I finished that all of the other contestants congratulated me on my performance. I think this is this sort of environment that makes me enjoy speaking German so much.
Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators 2023 - a school and student view from N Ireland
You can take the skills you learn in class a little bit further. We both really enjoyed seeing texts, poems and stories in different languages. We see lots of books in English, but it was fun to see real texts in French and Spanish.
Please click here for more information.
Languages East Competition Winners 2023
Congratulations to all who participated in 2023 in any of the RiL Bees or other activities. Details of the winners are here, along with a description of the activities and how schools can access them.