Intent

Learning of a language provides an invaluable cultural, educational and social experience for our pupils. It enables them to develop essential communication skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening in another language. We are also laying the foundations for the children to develop their knowledge of how languages work which will support them when learning other languages in the future. We believe that by learning another language, children develop a broader perspective on the world which encourages them to better understand their own culture and other cultures of the world.

Our main emphasis is on building confidence so that children are not afraid to have a go at communicating in French. It is important that children progress through the skills required by the National Curriculum, not just learn basic vocabulary, it is an expectation that they should be reading and writing simple sentences by year 6.

Implementation

Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages through weekly lessons. Children develop their love of language learning and progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics. We also have seasonal in-class worships where children develop an appreciation for French culture through the telling of stories and singing of French songs.

Our school follows the iLanguages scheme of work, adapted to meet the needs of our children. Details of the topics covered in each year group can be found on the class blogs.

As all children learn at different speeds and have different learning styles, we try to make French lessons as active as possible with carefully chosen songs and activities supplementing the iLanguages programme.

Impact

Our French curriculum will ensure that all pupils in KS2 develop the key skills as set out in the national curriculum, as well as develop a love of languages and an appreciation of other cultures. The national curriculum aims are that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources

• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation

• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt

• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied. 

How do we check the impact? 

• Displays of artwork throughout the school.  

• Monitoring of Languages teaching through various methods used by the subject leader and senior leadership team. 

• We track progress and attainment through WTS, ARE and GDS.

Link to the Languages programme of study:

Languages