Spanish teacher thrilled to make it through to finals
A Spanish teacher has made it to the finals of a prestigious national children’s awards beating thousands along the way.
Rachel Peebles, who runs her local Spanish Club, Estrellas Brillantes (meaning Shining Stars), is a finalist in the Club Hub Children’s Activity Awards 2021, scooping two of the strongest categories, Female Entrepreneur and Franchisee of the Year.
Rachel, of Eaglesham, teaches local babies, toddlers, pre-school and primary age children in Busby and Uddingston, using the award winning La Jolie Ronde Programme.
She was so delighted with her success and couldn’t wait to celebrate and tell her students the great news.
“I’m so thrilled to have made the finals in the awards as the standard of applications was extremely high and represented a diverse range of children’s activities, clubs and related businesses. The awards are also the only national awards, for activity providers, that are independently judged by a panel of expert and specialist judges. Six finalists are selected based on their commitment to excellence, innovation and growth of their business through their business performance, achievements, brand values and passion for what they do, so to be selected in not one but two hugely popular categories is incredible and a real boost after such a difficult year!”.
The 40-year-old’s love for languages was inspired from the nine years she spent working as a missionary in Bolivia where the official language is Spanish.
Rachel is self-taught and learnt from scratch with the help of the local children and families she worked alongside, in a very poor community, where poverty affected all aspects of family life.
She felt a real connection to the Spanish language, the people and the Latin American culture.
On returning to the UK, Rachel decided to look for a new challenge and a way to use her beloved Spanish so she started her own Spanish Club teaching and inspiring children to love languages and to get excited about learning Spanish.
What is unique about Rachel’s classes is the fundraising activities that she runs as part of her Spanish programme. As well as running normal term time classes, she also runs summer camps where children attend for two hours a day to learn Spanish through songs, games, arts and crafts and baking activities, and instead of paying Rachel for this, parents pay a suggested donation to charity, via an online fundraiser page.
Last year, fundraising Christmas activities raised money for food parcels and school jumpers for children in a rural school in Uganda, and this Easter the endof-term online activities will raise support to provide tablets and internet provision at the community project in Bolivia that Rachel used to work at, so children with no access to devices at home can go and do their online lessons while schools continue to be closed, and have a safe space to do homework and online investigations when their classes return to normal also.
When the first lockdown happened, schools and venues closed, and all classes ceased.
Against all the odds stacked against her, Rachel was determined to keep her students’ bilingual journey moving, so instead of cancelling classes, she simply took them online, setting up zoom classes the week that lockdown was announced.
“Although nothing beats face-to-face teaching, my online classes are working really well. As well as benefiting from continued learning, my students have really enjoyed working together and seeing their classmates on screen, and there are lots of new, interactive activities we can do on zoom too. This week I shared my great news with them all and we celebrated with a big thumbs up!”, says Rachel.
Award winners will be announced at a Club Hub Event and Awards Day in September.