Modern Foreign Languages at Old Sarum Primary

Intent – vision

To instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French.

Our curriculum develops what we term ‘language detective skills’ and an understanding of French grammar, and key vocabulary rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Key skills and vocabulary are 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.

Implementation – how we teach

French is taught weekly in Key Stage 2

Pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond.

Pronunciation is emphasised early on using our ‘mouth mechanics’ videos to support pupils with phoneme pronunciation in French. At the start of each lesson, children recap phonemes previously taught to help embed phoneme/grapheme recognition.

Impact – what this means for children

That children will:

• 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.

The impact can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and supports them in reaching age related expectations in line with the National Curriculum,. Pupil voice is also used as an assessment tool.