MFL- French

The MFL lead is Miss Roy.

"We learn French to communicate with others and expand our culture."

Intent

The teaching of French at Kirk Smeaton CE Primary school is designed to allow children to expand their vocabulary and inspire children to develop cultural understanding in the hope of building a genuine interest and positive curiosity about foreign languages, finding them enjoyable and stimulating. Learning a second language will also offer pupils the opportunity to explore relationships between language and identity, develop a deeper understanding of other cultures and the world around them with a better awareness of self, others and cultural similarities and differences. 

The skills and knowledge outlined in the National Curriculum are progressively built upon through the year groups, starting with basic phrases and greetings in reception to holding conversations in year 6. The children explore not only the vocabulary of the French language but become immersed and enriched  in the French culture. 

Our aim is to ensure all children explore and develop a love of language by providing a relevant, broad, vibrant and ambitious foreign languages curriculum to inspire and excite our pupils through a wide variety of topics and themes. All pupils are expected to achieve their full potential by setting and encouraging high expectations and excellent standards in their foreign language learning with the aim that pupils will feel willing and able to continue studying languages beyond key stage 2 and uphold conversations when exploring French speaking countries. 

We ensure that the children have the opportunity to explore the four key language learning skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, enabling pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts.

Implementation 

All classes have access to a very high-quality foreign languages curriculum using the Language Angels scheme of work along with other resources pulled from various areas. This progressively develops skills in foreign languages through regularly taught and well-planned weekly lessons. 

In EYFS, children are encouraged to develop their love and enthusiasm for French by being exposed to a wide variety of songs, games and interactive slides with the outcome of saying key words such as greetings. 

In KS1, children build upon their love of languages by being exposed to developing forms of language with a high focus on orally repeating key words and creating phrases. 

In KS2, children are expected to use taught words to develop conversations with each other with a variation of tasks including reading, writing, listening and speaking. 

Throughout implementing our foreign language teaching, children will progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge organised around age-appropriate topics and themes, building blocks of language into more complex, fluent and authentic language.

All lessons offer appropriate levels of challenge and all children are stretched to ensure pupils continuously build their knowledge and enthusiasm for the language they are learning.

Impact

As well as each subsequent lesson within a unit being progressive, the teaching type organisation of units also directs, drives and guarantees progressive learning and challenge. 

Through the teaching of high-quality French lessons, a love of language and culture are promoted by teachers and pupils thrive from this across school by receiving effective knowledge and understanding. All children use French vocabulary accurately and are able to implement this into confident conversations by the end of their time at primary school. 

Children understand and use the different components of French and apply the culture learnt through enrichment activities into the real world.

Please see the vocabulary overview

Please see the whole school Kirk Smeaton Long Term Overview

Please see the French Progression of Skills