Language curriculum - French
Intent
At Saughall All Saints, our curriculum equips the children with the foundational language skills, cultural awareness and the confidence needed to become enthusiastic and capable global communicators. By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils can understand and respond to spoken and written French with increasing accuracy, fluency and independence. They develop strong phonics knowledge to support their pronunciation, enabling them to speak with clarity and growing confidence.
Through a carefully sequenced curriculum, the children build a secure vocabulary base and apply grammatical structures progressively, allowing them to create simple written sentences and express their own ideas. Regular opportunities for retrieval and application ensure that learning is embedded and retained over time.
Beyond language acquisition, the children gain valuable insights into Francophone cultures, traditions and their ways of life. This cultural understanding enriches their appreciation of diversity and broadens their awareness of the wider world.
As a result, the children leave Saughall All Saints well-prepared for the challenges of language learning in KS3. They show positive attitudes towards learning another language and demonstrate resilience when encountering unfamiliar vocabulary. Overall, our French curriculum fosters curiosity, develops important communication skills and lays the foundation for lifelong language learning.
Implementation
Although Modern Foreign Languages is not a statutory requirement in Key Stage 1, the infant children at Saughall All Saints, through the use of songs, rhymes and books, are introduced to basic French vocabulary. By starting their language learning in Key Stage 1, it allows the children to begin to build the foundations and also develops their curiosity about other languages.
Throughout Key Stage 2, the children have weekly lessons in French, taught by the class teacher, using the resources and units of work from the Primary Languages Network. As our classes have mixed age groups (Year 3/4 and Year 5/6), the scheme of work has been adapted to follow a two year cycle. Year 3 and 4 will cover Stage 1 and Stage 2 and Year 5 and 6 will cover Stage 3 and Stage 4.
The children build on their knowledge and skills as they work through the language learning stages. The scheme of work is progressive, with the foundations being laid in Stages 1 and 2, ready for further development and challenge in Stages 3 and 4.
It is a live scheme which is continually updated and revised in order to meet with current curriculum standards. It holds at its core the Intent, Implementation and Impact of MFL whilst maintaining a ‘primary’ focus. Alongside the planning provided, the scheme is supported by accompanying videos, PowerPoints, audio files (spoken by native speakers), links to authentic literature, songs, games, cultural points of reference, seasonal events and cross-curricular links.
To promote an active learning of languages, a range of teaching methods are implemented to ensure that the children are developing their linguistic skills through listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to be secondary ready. Activities can consist of actions, rhymes, stories, song, drama, grammar focus, video clips, air writing, sentence structure, dictionary work, book making and many more creative ways to extend, embed and combine language skills.
Impact
Through high quality lessons supported by the Primary Languages Network scheme, we will ensure that children are:
- developing a love for languages and learning about other cultures.
- accessing work that promotes inclusion and equal opportunity.
- able to recognise and apply key vocabulary within conversations.
- aware that language has structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another.
- challenged in a range of speaking and listening, reading and writing activities.
- transferring to KS3 effectively and successfully, well prepared to continue and develop their language learning.