Modern Foreign Languages 

At Billesdon C of E Primary School, French is taught as our Modern Foreign Language for Years 3 to 6 in Key Stage 2.  The school continues to expose our children to wider world languages through songs and poems, books, spoken phrases and wider curriculum work.  

MFL Progression of Skills - click here

Curriculum overview - click here

Intent

The school offers a carefully planned sequence of lessons, ensuring progressive build up of knowledge and skills required by the national curriculum to Key Stage 2 children. Our scheme has been chosen to develop three pillars of learning in language development - vocabulary, grammar and phonics. It provides opportunities to interact and communicate with others both in speech and in writing, whilst building skills and securing prior learning. 

In line with the National Programme of Study for Languages at KS2, our curriculum enables pupils to:

• Listen and show understanding by joining in and responding
• Link the sound, spelling and meaning of words
• Read aloud with accurate pronunciation
• Read and show understanding of phrases and simple texts
• Speak in sentences
• Describe people, places, things in speech and writing
• Ask and answer questions
• Express opinions
• Write phrases from memory
• Adapt phrases to create new sentences
• Use a dictionary

Through this curriculum, we foster in our pupils a fascination for words and how language works, a wider curiosity about the peoples and cultures of countries where the new language is spoken and the foundational knowledge to support confident communication.

Our curriculum is designed to enable our children to:

• Develop linguistic and communicative competence
• Extend their knowledge of how language works
• Explore similarities and differences between the new language and any heritage languages our children have, and English. Our intention is to inspire pupils to develop a love of languages and to expand their horizons to other countries, cultures and people, to help children grow into curious, confident and reflective language learners and to provide them with a foundation that will equip them for further language studies and careers.

 Implementation

At Billesdon, French lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammar are built in and use a two year rolling plan to ensure full coverage of objectives to Lower KS2 and Upper KS2.  The skills are built up throughout KS2 with opportunities to use prior knowledge, secure learning and revise concepts throughout.

Our scheme of work has been implemented as part of our collaborative work with the UCC Language Hub in partnership with local feeder schools and Uppingham Community College.  The Rachel Hawkes Scheme of Work is implemented in two year cycles to cover our mixed age classes.  Due to the progression build up of knowledge within the scheme, our school will implement the scheme of work in a specific way to build up to a full programme of 4 year strands to be covered over KS2 to ensure full exposure to the three pillars of learning of vocabulary, phonics and grammar which form the basis of language learning.  Please see the link above for the Curriculum Overview to see how this is being managed.

The scheme of work is built around 38 teaching weeks and allows for 2 assessment weeks termly for assessment/consolidation or extension work. The aim is to build vocabulary knowledge by teaching the most frequently used words, including concrete nouns and core language (e.g. classroom items, numbers, days, months).  Vocabulary learning is structured and revisited, together with recycling of words which allows children to learn a few new words each week as well as a continued exposure to words already learnt.  Throughout the scheme of work words and phrases use target language which is increased in line with the vocabulary and grammar progression and is delivered with expert example and in written form.  French culture is included from the outset, together with exposure to the wider global use of the language.  The scheme of work also introduces songs which support the development of memory, establishes phonic practice and further develops cultural knowledge.

Our implementation of this scheme of learning will continue to be collaborated on with the UCC Language Hub to support the ongoing development of language learning into secondary school.

Impact

Teaching staff use key questioning skills built into lessons, forrmative assessment such as mini-quizzes and summative assessments aimed at targeting key skills within the lessons, revise prior learningext steps in learning and to make informed judgements on progress and attainment.  The school also aims to foster a love of languages and both staff and children will feedback regarding enjoyment and enthusiasm for language as part of school monitoring processes.

Link to the national curriculum guidance for Modern Foreign languages - click here

 The use of this resource is based on Y3_4_rouge_t1_w1_lesson (by Guillou, Marie-Odile; Hawkes, Rachel), licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.