Intent

The 2014 National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages aims to ensure that all children:

• Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources.
• Are able to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and that they are continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation.
• Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.
• Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

A high quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At Bethersden Primary School we are committed to ensuring that competence in another language enables children to interpret, create and exchange meaning within and across cultures. It also helps children develop skills that will open further opportunities later in life. The teaching of French in EYFS, KS1 and KS2 provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at KS3.

Implementation

Children are introduced to French from the EYFS and receive a weekly 30 minute lesson, throughout their time in Year 1. This enables the children to develop early language acquisition skills that facilitate their understanding of the patterns of language and how these differ from, or are similar to, English. In KS2, each class has a timetabled French lesson of 45 minutes. Lessons across the Key Stages support the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing:

• Children are taught to listen attentively to spoken language and respond, joining in with songs, rhymes and games.
• Children develop an appreciation of a variety of stories, songs, poems and rhymes in French that are delivered through the curriculum content as well as by native French speakers within the wider school community.
• We follow the primary MFL scheme of work
• Language Week enables the whole school to be immersed in the inclusion of the culture and use the language meaningfully in context.

Impact

Our MFL curriculum ensures that children develop their knowledge of where different languages, including the range of home languages spoken by the families of the school, as well as French, are spoken in the world. Varied learning experiences, including ‘Language of the Month’ also ensure that languages are celebrated throughout the school community whilst providing a context for language learning and develop the children’s understanding of different cultures.