MFL

Intent

At Staincliffe CofE Junior School, we know learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and provides us with respect for other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and joy to deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable children to express and trust their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes and learn new ways of thinking. Learning a language in school should provide the foundation for learning further languages and instilling courage for later life to study and work in other countries.

Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in French, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. French is taught 3 times a year, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. Our skills-focussed French curriculum is delivered through a sequence of engaging ‘big questions’ as the hook that starts each learning journey. During our classroom based learning there are a variety of opportunities to enhance our children’s independent learning skills through role play experiences.  

Our curriculum provides:

• opportunities to understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• opportunities for speaking 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
• opportunities to write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• an understanding of the culture of the countries in which the language is spoken

To track the progress of our linguists, we:

• Create Knowledge Organisers which outline knowledge including vocabulary all children must master and apply in lessons.
• Repeat vocabulary regularly to support learner’s ability to retain learning and increase space in the working memory
   
• Capture ‘Pupil Voice’ at regular intervals

Impact

By the time they leave us, as linguists, our children will have:

• The confidence to speak with good intonation and pronunciation in French.
• Fluency in reading basic French.
• Fluency in writing in basic French.
   
• A passion for languages and a commitment to the subject.
• The ability to use language creatively and spontaneously.
• An independence in their studies. 

Our French curriculum is high quality, well thought out and planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with our curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress and support is put in place for those working towards the curriculum objectives.

Please click here for our MFL 'Progression of Knowledge and Skills' document.