Intent for Languages: 

• The learning of a language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils, helping them to better understand their place in the wider world.

• Children will develop knowledge of how a language works to lay the foundations for further language learning in future. This helps them to become confident in communication skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, with the aim of making substantial progress in one language, French.

• Recording is in subject diaries in Years 3 and 4 because it facilitates the delivery of a lively and relevant curriculum, encouraging the use of pupil voice, role-play lessons, sentence strips, practical activities and games to embed children’s understanding and core skills. At the beginning of a unit most learning is oral, leading on to more recording towards the end of a unit. Years 5 and 6 record their learning in workbooks to develop their knowledge of grammar and spelling.
• Learning another language gives children a broader outlook on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others.
• Interactive and active learning ensure that French is accessible to all pupil groups including Pupil Premium and SEN children.

Implementation of Languages:

• Children develop their love of language learning and develop skills throughout their time in school.
• In KS2, children are taught in weekly sessions by class teachers. We encourage the participation and awareness of children in KS1 through the enjoyment of French songs and stories either in class or fortnightly assemblies.
• Learning focuses on oral skills with opportunities for writing provided on a regular basis.

• Our federation follow a Mastery curriculum We chose Easy MFL in response to the concerns of staff, to scaffold lesson planning, simplify lesson delivery and to support non-specialists. It ensures curriculum content is consistent across all classes in KS2. Topics build on knowledge from previous units in weekly sessions, embedding key vocabulary before children move on. Teachers have ownership of their planning, allowing them to adapt the scheme of learning, as well as including extension tasks to stretch and challenge. Easy MFL includes sound buttons to support correct pronunciation.
• See the progression of skills in each year group
• Targets and focuses are skills or knowledge based as appropriate
• Teachers complete AFL on planning

• We acknowledge children’s different learning styles, providing opportunities to learn through active participation in actions, rhymes, stories, songs, dictionary work and sentence structure, to allow all groups to develop their language skills.

Impact of Languages:

• Children are encouraged to understand the relevance of their language-learning and how it relates to everyday life and travel.
• Teachers foster an enjoyment of languages through a variety of techniques which include interactive, singing and active sessions. Progression through a topic is evident in the development of key skills and acquisition of main vocabulary.
• Evidence is kept of children’s work in individual books or class learning diaries Teacher AfL records children’s progress. Individual support is available from the Languages co-ordinator in each school or for the Federation.

• Mastery curriculum enables all pupils to access the curriculum despite their starting points with challenging greater depth tasks to push the children’s learning further.
• Children  develop a greater understanding of the relevance of language learning in their lives.
• Their vocabulary, knowledge and comprehension skills in French will deepen.
• Every child will achieve as a linguist.

Our French curriculum will ensure all pupils develop key language learning skills, as set out by the national curriculum:

• 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

(The National Curriculum Framework Document. September 20)

Key priorities 2021 (linked to action plan)

• Identify gaps in vocabulary to address covid lockdown.
• Tracking pupils progress – impact of whole school planning/AFL (questioning, feedback, observing, effective feedback, peer assessment)
• Pupil discussion/conferencing
• Developing cultural capital – authentic experiences to be developed in curriculum

eg video, texts

Curriculum Overview