15 February 2021
Pupils in Year 5 have become French detectives over the past two weeks to solve the mystery of the stolen pains au chocolat. There were ten prime suspects and the boys listened to them talk about themselves then received police transcripts of their accounts (all in French of course) so they could build up a profile of each individual. In their haste to leave the crime scene, the thief left a bag behind which contained a number of clues as to their identity. As each clue was revealed the detectives eliminated suspects until the culprit was identified. Whilst other police forces work with the aid of sniffer dogs, our young detectives enjoyed the support of their cats, dogs and even guinea pigs during the investigation. We rounded off the police work by creating some posters to try to apprehend the thief and had a celebratory French pastry via Zoom. Bravo les agents de police!
Many thanks to colleagues in the French department at Abingdon School and Mr Windsor who assumed the roles of the suspects for us. It was wonderful for the boys to hear a range of French voices and they were delighted to put all their learning into practice to say nothing of solving a pastry based crime.
