Intent
It is our intent at Cockfield Primary School to provide all of our children with a high quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which develops their love of
learning about other languages and cultures and helps provide them with an
understanding of the world. We aim to build the children’s ‘cultural capital’ so that
they have a knowledge and understanding of the richness and diversity between
cultures.
All pupils at Cockfield will be expected to achieve their full potential in their foreign
language learning (French) – the ultimate aim is that pupils will feel confident
engaging in spoken French, develop skills in reading, listening and writing, and
know how important languages will be in their future.
We hope that all pupils will develop a genuine interest and curiosity about
languages, finding them enjoyable and exciting and show a desire to continue
their language learning in the next stage of their learning journey.
Implementation
Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages,
through regular taught lessons. Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing
bank of vocabulary organised around topics. They are encouraged and supported to
develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, singing activities and games. As confidence and skill grows, children record their work through pictures, captions and sentences.
In our scheme of work – “Language Angels” – the French curriculum has a focus on
speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, as well as making children aware of
grammatical features of the French language. Teachers follow the sequence of
lessons from this scheme of work adapted to suit our pupils covering a wide variety
of topics and themes. Weekly lessons are taught (20 minutes) ensuring progression
by building on previous lessons. At the start of each lesson, teachers recap on prior
learning – last week ((la semaine dernière), last month (le mois dernier). Previous
language will be revised, recalled and consolidated whenever possible and
appropriate.
Perfomance is a key part of pupils’ French learning. The opportunities that we plan
for this includes singing songs, drama / role play activities and performing rhymes.
To provide children with an audience and purpose, and to make learning more
memorable, they have various opportunities throughout the year to perform to
parents / carers. Other ways in which children foster a love of French is through active participation in lessons through video clips, sentence building activities, dictionary work and writing for a purpose such as a letter to Santa. We celebrate their acquisition of
language by inviting parents/carers in to watch performances and to take part in a
French café. We promote parental involvement with photos on Classdojo, the school website and our Facebook page. We are also continuing to develop International Links within the school and regularly have visitors who discuss their culture with the children.
Impact
Our MFL curriculum ensures that all pupils develop key language learning skills set
out by the national curriculum, as well as a love of languages and learning about
other cultures. An action plan has been created by the subject lead to monitor targets we wish to implement across the school. The subject leader will also liaise with all staff across year groups by attending termly year group meetings to discuss strengths and any
emerging needs. These meetings also feed in to the triangulation of evidence for
the monitoring of French. The Subject Leader monitors the effectiveness of the language teaching provided throughout the year with termly book trawls, learning walks, planning scrutinies and pupil interviews. The class teacher will monitor the learning and progression made by pupils across the key stage.
Skills_Progression_Grid_By_Year_Group
KS2 Unit_Planner_(Mixed_Age_Year_Groups)