Within The South Hams Federation our goal is to promote a lifelong love for learning about the world, equipping children with the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to enable them to contribute effectively in a rapidly changing world.
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 one language works to lay the foundations for further language learning in future. This helps them build their confidence in communication skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, with the aim of making substantial progress in one language, French.
We encourage pupils within The South Hams Federation to display a positive approach to language- learning as they develop attitudes that embrace challenge. We are constantly striving to improve outcomes for all our pupils and to achieve the aims of the National Curriculum:
· Understand and respond to spoken and written language
· Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity
· Write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences
· Develop an appreciation of a range of writing in French
As a school we are committed to ensuring that children are able to recognise the importance of language-learning in the wider world and the potential to use their skills and knowledge confidently in their lives.
We aim to build knowledge, skills and understanding by revisiting prior learning at regular intervals and providing pupils with the opportunity to refresh their learning through practice and consolidation at every age and stage.
The goal of teaching for mastery is to provide all pupils (including those with SEND) access to equitable classrooms; places where pupils can all participate and be influential and where they are supported to develop a deep and meaningful understanding of language-learning.

A discursive approach
We are passionate that children should be encouraged to be active and equitable participants in language lessons. We intend all pupils to be valuable and important members of our language-learning community. We encourage children to take risks in their approach to learning and feel comfortable to take part even when they feel unsure. Children are encouraged to question one another; justifying their thinking and work together collaboratively.

Ethos and Growth Mindset
We actively promote a ;growth mindset; approach during lessons. Children are expected to relish challenge and embrace any mistakes as part of the learning process. They value the importance of effort and respond carefully to feedback to take inspiration from others. We believe in challenging children and have a high expectation of pupil’s response to their learning.
We also introduce children to the concept of metacognition, ensuring key concepts are embedded in their long-term memory by connecting new knowledge (working memory) with their existing knowledge (long term memory).

Depth of learning
The curriculum we have chosen builds carefully on the vocabulary, grammar and phonics learnt
across KS2. Teachers use a range of techniques in their teaching to maximise clarity and increase depth of learning. We maintain on-going formative assessment that recognises children’s depth and breadth of understanding. In KS2, children are taught in weekly sessions by class teachers. Learning focuses on oral skills with opportunities for writing provided on a regular basis.
Cultural capital
Cultural capital is concerned with providing children with the essential knowledge and skills for what comes next. Through the exploration of new skills and experiences we help to nurture resilience, curiosity and creativity. During this journey, children develop new forms of cultural capital that makes a difference in individual mind-sets, which consequently shapes their future.

Implementation
To ensure our intent works in our day-to-day classrooms we understand that our implementation
needs to be:
o Flexible
o Creative
o Robust
o Resilient
o Collaborative
“Good quality teaching takes into account all children in the class and plans small enough steps for the vast majority of children to achieve success with scaffolding and support, and for others to be challenged in the same concept to a greater depth of reasoning.” (EEF)

Planning
Planning follows the Curriculum Map and is in line with the National Curriculum Programme of
Study for each year group. Curriculum coverage as well as depth of learning are key drivers for planning. We have chosen to use Language Angels to support staff to deliver high quality lessons which feature native French speakers. The programme scaffolds lesson planning, simplifies lesson delivery and supports 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 as children move on. Teaching is responsive and adaptable, with clear progression in steps between lessons that is driven by the children’s learning. Through the teacher’s reflective approach, the majority of each cohort will move
through the content at the broadly the same pace.

Retrieval practice
As a school, we have developed our understanding and use of a variety of pedagogical approaches that focus on how children learn. We believe that these approaches enhance and develop our approach to teaching. We are using the 10 principles of Instruction (Rosenshine) to underpin our planning; carefully planning opportunities for retrieval through the use of scaffolded questioning. We understand that regular retrieval practice, where children revisit prior learning, helps to connect new ideas to ones that are already known. Knowledge organisers are used as
a metacognitive tool, making the core knowledge and language vocabulary explicit for each topic, whilst developing cultural capital. They are used regularly for formative assessment strategies, including quizzing to help pupils boost their recall of core knowledge and facts.

Small step learning and mastery pedagogy
Pedagogy within The South Hams Federation focuses on breaking down learning into small steps and employing teaching for mastery techniques such as: frequent revisiting of new vocabulary and structures, the use of pupil voice, role-play lessons, sentence strips, practical activities and games to embed children’s understanding and core skills. Current research on retrieval practice and cognitive load theory are at the forefront of our planning process in these areas.

Questioning and AFL
Teachers will use questioning throughout language lessons to elicit children’s understanding and challenge them to secure their knowledge. Questions are relevant and precise to develop understanding alongside the use of vocabulary. Teachers build opportunities for AFL into lessons; we look for regular opportunities for discussion and use strategies, such as the “hands down” approach to check and deepen children’s understanding.

Modelling, Discussion and Dialogue
Listening and speaking are at the heart of all language-learning. Teachers encourage children to: articulate their thinking, take responsibility for asking questions of others to clarify understanding, agree and disagree, justify their thinking and respond in full sentences with the expectation that everyone can understand them.

Challenges for Depth of Learning
Challenge focuses on breadth and depth of understanding and expects the children to apply their knowledge in challenging scenarios. Greater depth tasks are carefully planned for every lesson. Evidence of challenge will be apparent in the books of confident linguists.

Responsive Teaching and Feedback
In languages, all written work is expected to be marked. By studying the EEF document ‘A Marked Improvement’ the use of targets is used to make marking as specific and actionable as possible in order to increase pupil progress. Where necessary teachers will intervene immediately to enable pupils to make progress in their learning. Any intervention/ response from the teacher will be annotated in the child’s book and will consolidate their thinking or encourage them to make progress.

SEND Pupils
Where children are working significantly below the expected age-related requirements of the curriculum, scaffolding and targeted work takes place on a regular basis. These activities are planned by the teacher in discussion and collaboration with the SENDCO, parents and the TA working within the class. Within The South Hams Federation, we believe that it is important that all learners are taught within the classroom with their peers. Where interventions are appropriate,
teachers and teaching assistants follow a bespoke evidence informed intervention. We also pre-teach children who are at risk of falling behind in certain areas, this develops curiosity and interest as well as gives these children confidence and practice in retrieval before they learn new materials. Each child with specific SEND difficulties will have targets that are agreed and monitored every half term to ensure progression.

Collaborative and Reflective CPD
The South Hams Federation is made up of four schools, which gives us an opportunity to reflect and collaborate on all curriculum drivers and
keep up to date with current CPD, in addition to participating in external subject-specific continuing professional development.

Impact
Pupil Voice
The most effective way to find out what pupils understand about their language-learning will be by listening to them.
Pupils really understand linguistic concepts, knowledge or technique when they can:
• Describe it in their own words;
• Explain it to someone else;
• Make up their own examples (and non-examples) of it;
• See connections between it and other knowledge;
• Recognise it in new situations and contexts;
• Make use of it in various ways, including in new situations
Through conversations with pupils, we are also able to understand how they learn. If children can connect prior learning to current learning, alongside an understand of why they are learning, then they will know how to use it in their future learning.

Progression
Effective monitoring and evaluation as well as informed and adaptable planning ensure progress is evident in all books for all learners. Progress can be seen week on week as a teaching sequence is delivered as well as over a whole unit, termly and over the course of the academic year. Timely ‘book looks’, cross-federation moderation and learning walks review progress in relation to the progression of skills for each year group and guarantee that consistency and high expectations are maintained.

Learning Environment

The learning environment seeks to challenge, inspire and aid all learners in The South Hams Federation. The working walls in each class showcase the curriculum being taught and the planned sequence of learning for the unit, reflecting active learning and pupil voice. The work on display celebrates the achievements of the learners and the progress they are making.

Recording in Books
The purpose of children recording in books is to embed their learning by working individually, independently and at greater depth. It also allows teachers to measure pupils’ depth of understanding. Our books show a child’s journey through their learning. We also include an assessment point at the end of each half term to monitor children’s progress in the four keyskills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Planning
The careful sequencing of the curriculum – and how concepts are gradually built over time – is the progression model. If pupils are keeping up with the curriculum, they are making progress.
Formative assessment is prioritised and is focused on whether pupils are keeping up with the curriculum. Summative tasks are used to support and confirm this approach.