The idea came from a BBC 'Trampoline' CD which contained a brief section on a competition between three people for the best alphabet song.

I adapted and extended this, asking groups of children to come up with their own French alphabet raps or songs, set to familiar tunes. Each of the six classes, then voted for a class winner and each class practised the winning song/rap.

Once they were confident, I did a video of each class performing their song and downloaded these onto the computer, so that the children in Year 3 (who will be doing French next year) could vote for their favourite. The votes were counted and an overall winner identified.

In a bilingual KS2 assembly on the day before the Eurovision Song Contest, the videos were played and the results of the Alphavision Rap Contest announced. Fortunately, no class got 'nul points'!! The winners were presented with a trophy.

The children absolutely loved the whole thing and it worked on lots of levels. Believe me, if they remember nothing else, they'll all know the French alphabet!

Thanks to Angela Smith for this idea

Please send us anything you have tried and worked well that you would like to share with others.