Intent
Everything we do at Ide Hill CE Primary School stems from our Christian Vision and the love of learning that we aim to foster in all our pupils. Our core values of love respect and responsibility are at the heart of our broad and balanced curriculum (John 10:10).
Our intent with the subject of MFL is to provide all children at our school with a high-quality language education which fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. Currently, we teach French as our MFL through the Kapow scheme of work. This scheme aims to instil an interest in language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We believe that learning another language gives children a new and broader perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others.
We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes and to use both written and spoken French. Through our scheme of work, we aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages and developing a strong understanding of the English language. We are hopeful that this will facilitate future opportunities to study and work in other countries.
Implementation
MFL is not statutory in KS1 or EYFS but is introduced to the younger year groups by children beginning to answer the register in different languages; by counting forwards and backwards in French and sometimes reading well-known stories to the children in other languages than English.
In KS2, the French scheme of work is designed with three knowledge strands that run throughout our units with knowledge building cumulatively. These are:
● Phonics
● Vocabulary
● Grammar
This knowledge can then be applied within our skills strands, which also run throughout each unit in the scheme:
● Language comprehension (Listening and reading)
● Language production (Speaking and writing).
Our Progression of Skills document has been mapped against the National Curriculum objectives to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2.
The scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included throughout our French units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.
Lessons are taught weekly every other term and incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, and key vocabulary rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Pronunciation is emphasised early on using our Mouth mechanics videos to support pupils with phoneme pronunciation in French.
Impact
The impact of the teaching of French is monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. After the implementation of the French scheme, 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 of following the French scheme of work is that children will:
- Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g., ordering in a cafe, following directions) 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 attainment target by the end of Year 6.