SCHOOLS in the South West have launched a scheme to allow their pupils to teach languages to primary school children in Plymouth.

The 24 secondary schools – many of them from Plymouth – launched the scheme, which is expected to benefit secondary and primary pupils in their languages development, at separate events in the region.

The partnership of schools successfully bid for a £10,000 grant to run the LinkedUp scheme, which will see secondary school pupils aged 13 and 14 working with primary pupils over the next six months.

The Year 9 pupils from the participating schools will also work with primary languages teachers to design and create appropriate resources to teach languages such as French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Latin.

The group has also set up a blog to share ideas and resources on the project.

Devonport High School for Girls, Hele's School, Plymouth High School for Girls, Devonport High School for Boys, Callington Community College and Ivybridge Community College have launched the scheme in the Plymouth area. A total of 600 pupils took part in the launch.

The school partnership was given the £10,000 by the LinkedUp Award Scheme. The successful bid was among the first awarded nationally for a project on this scale, said organisers.

The LinkedUp scheme encourages the development of ideas for language learning. It is managed by the Association for Language Learning as part of Links Into Languages, a new government- funded network of regional centres which have been created to support language teachers.

The project will involve up to 24 secondary schools partnered with 24 primary schools in the region.

Elspeth Wiltshire, project leader in Plymouth, said: "The partnership element in this project is very strong and schools across the city, in East Cornwall and West Devon will have a platform for sharing ideas and resources.

"Primary and secondary pupils will collaborate to develop a variety of teaching aids at the same time benefiting from this motivating experience.

"The professional development opportunity for teachers will also be invaluable in that they will be working together with the aim of having a sustainable impact on language learning by making it more creative and engaging."