Modern Foreign Language

Intent

At Capel Primary School we want to provide all our children with a high-quality education in French. We believe that learning another language helps develops their love of learning about other languages and cultures and helps provide them with a broader understanding of the world. We aim to build the children’s cultural understanding so that they have a knowledge and understanding of the richness and diversity between cultures.

Our 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 past KS 2.

Implementation

 At Capel we use Languagenut as our main resource for planning and resourcing our French lessons, however the teachers have the ability to create activities which respond to the needs of the children. We use our progression map to ensure our content is taught sequentially and our children are able to develop key skills over time. Our main focuses in lessons are: understanding, speaking, listening, reading and writing. Over the course of our units the children build up these skills alongside their confidence to use the French language effectively. 

We use whole class floor books to record lessons. Examples of children's pictures, writing and work is placed in these books as a record of the learning that has taken place. We also encourage the children to take ownership of these books and share what activity or learning they did in the individual lesson.

Last year we decided to start all our KS2 classes in the Year 3 curriculum to ensure the foundational understanding of the language was secure. This year years 4, 5 and 6 are teaching the Year 4 curriculum. Over the next 3 years we will continue to build up the knowledge our children have to ensure they are fully equipped for secondary school.

 

Impact

Thanks to our floor books and consistant starting point we saw MFL being taught much more frequently and to a higher standard than in previous years. Children were able to talk about their learning and share their understanding of the French language.

Teachers found the resources on Languagenut supportive and helpful in designing their sequence of lessons. We have also begun developing our own bank of resources to further strengthen our teaching and learning. Teachers found the floor books very successful in monitoring the teaching, outcomes and assessments of their classes.

We aim to continue to strengthen all these elements over the coming years to ensure our intent is successful.