Intent

We believe that learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multicultural society and provides an opening to understanding other cultures and the desire to travel. The curriculum is designed to foster curiosity and enjoyment of learning another language. French is the only Modern Foreign Language (MFL) studied at Edleston Primary School; this specific focus enables pupils to make progress for their next stage of learning in KS3. However, many unstructured opportunities to learn another language present themselves at our school due to the diverse number of languages spoken by pupils and staff. French will be taught to all KS2 year groups in a progressive manner using the Classroom Secrets scheme.

In line with the 2014 National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages, Edleston Primary School aims to ensure all children:

• 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.

Implementation
Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages, through regularly taught lessons. Lessons are taught weekly the Kapow scheme of work. The scheme of work builds on vocabulary and topics learnt the previous year as the scheme progresses. The full scheme of learning gives the coverage as required by the National Curriculum, with clear progression across the keys stages and year groups. Children can practice what they have learnt using the scheme’s interactive activities, verbal activities (whole class, group work, partner work), listening activities, reading activities and written tasks. Answering Flashback 4-style review questions ensure previous learning is revisited and remembered.

Impact
French activities are recorded in children’s Themed Learning books following a pattern of a half hour lesson a week, alternating verbal lessons with a lesson using written tasks.  Subject leaders also take scheduled learning walks to evaluate reading and oracy within the subject. Children are motivated and enthused to learn a different language, build confidence at their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, are not inhibited to ‘have a go’ at speaking out loud, and are able to read and write in French to the expected ability, allowing for their age and needs. Children respect people who speak a different language, are interested and curious, considering future travel and further study of the language at KS3 and beyond.