Languages

French at St Peter and St Paul Catholic Primary Academy

At St. Peter and St. Paul we have chosen to teach French as our Modern Foreign Language. Through our teaching of French, we aim to instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. Our French scheme of work supports pupils to meet the National Curriculum end of Key Stage 2 attainment targets.

Intent

We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. We aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages, developing a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future.

Implementation

Our French scheme of work is designed with six strands that run throughout. These are:

Speaking and pronunciation
Listening
Reading and writing
Grammar
Intercultural understanding
Language detective skills

Pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. We provide balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond.

Our scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included throughout our French units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. We focus on developing ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all.

Our Long Term Plan shows which units cover each of the National Curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.

Our Progression of Skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2.

French is timetabled once a week for Years 3, 4, 5 and 6. Due to the restrictions of Covid-19 all classes are covering the Year 3 curriculum in the academic year 2021-2022.

Impact

The impact of teaching and learning of French can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment.

Pupils should leave our Academy equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.

The expected impact is that children will:

Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g., ordering in a café, following directions) and express an opinion.

Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases, and short texts.

Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation.

Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding appropriately.

Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning.

Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have learnt.

Have developed an awareness of cognates and near-cognates and be able to use them to tackle unfamiliar words in French, English, and other languages.

Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics.

Meet the end of Key Stage 2 stage expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for Languages.