French

Intent 

In teaching French, we aim to instil a love of language learning and awareness of other cultures around the world. We want children to develop the confidence to communicate in French for a range of practical purposes using both spoken and written forms. We aim to give a foundation for language learning that will be transferrable to learning further languages whilst developing a strong understanding of the English language. We believe that language learning can facilitate further study and work in other countries in the future. Our scheme of learning covers National Curriculum expectations and enables pupils to meet end of Key Stage 2 requirements. 

Click to Download French Progression [pdf 176KB] Click to Download
Click to Download French Curriculum Overview [pdf 351KB] Click to Download

Implementation 

The French scheme of work which we follow (Kapow) 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. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French. It is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. 

As we teach in mixed-age classes, our progression of knowledge/skills is a key document. Units of work have been organised in a 2-year cycle for Year 3/4 and Year 5/6. Units generally comprise of 5 lessons which allows time for recap of skills such as greetings, numbers and colours at the start of the year or term. Cross-curricular links are built-in to 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. There is a focus on developing what we term ‘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. 

Impact 

Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. An assessment spreadsheet is available to record children’s progress in each lesson to enable a picture to be built of their learning through each unit. Pupils should leave school 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 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 expectations outlined in the National Curriculum for languages