French
‘A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing.’ (National Curriculum 2014 – Appendix A)
Intent
The skills, knowledge and understanding gained through learning a language contribute to the development of children’s oracy and literacy and to their understanding of their own culture and those of others. At St Peter’s, we feel that the earlier a child is exposed to a foreign language, the faster the language in question is acquired. We believe that the early acquisition of French will facilitate the learning of other foreign languages later in life and we prepare children for the KS3 language curriculum, enabling them to transfer to secondary school confidently and successfully.
Implementation
We teach French across school from Nursery to the end of Key Stage 2. Our school uses the Language Angels scheme of work to support the teaching and learning of French. This provides clear progression for the development of speaking and listening and vocabulary acquisition. High-quality resources are provided to support teaching and learning.
A variety of the following techniques are employed to encourage children to actively engage with French:
- Games – in order to develop vocabulary through repetition, reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.
- Role-play – scenarios which relate to situations children may find themselves in the future.
- Action songs and rhymes – to develop phonetic skills, memory skills and to further vocabulary.
- Reading and writing materials
- Confidence-building through praise for any contribution children make in the foreign language, however tentative.
We have adapted the Language Angels scheme of work to suit the context of our school and our children's needs. Teachers are provided with clear progression grids and age-appropriate content for teaching and learning.
Impact
Through quality first teaching, children will be able to communicate with each other in French, becoming aware that every language has a structure, and that this structure differs from one language to another. Children will develop a love of and competency in French through their development of the four key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Their language learning will be enriched through the development of an understanding of French culture and children will transfer to KS3 effectively and successfully and be well prepared to continue to develop their language skills in the future.