MFL: French

All children – regardless of gender, starting point or background – will have the opportunity to engage with a high-quality languages education and foster a curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At Westminster Primary School children will learn French. They will be equipped with the knowledge, skills and vocabulary to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and writing.  Together with providing them opportunities to communicate for practical purposes. We intend to inspire a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about languages and the world.

Intent

At Westminster Community Primary School, the intention of our MFL curriculum is to develop an interest in and thirst for learning other languages. We aim to introduce the learning of the French language and the understanding of its culture in enjoyable and stimulating ways. We hope to embed the essential skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. We aim to build the children’s ‘culture capital’ so that they are aware of similarities and differences between cultures. In short, we hope to lay the foundations for future language learning. In the past French has not been a priority at Westminster Community Primary, however we are working hard to change this as we are aware of the huge benefits language learning provide.

Implementation

Our MFL curriculum has been designed to progressively develop skills in French. We are currently using Kapow to deliver our French lessons. These ensure children acquire a bank of vocabulary organised around topics. They ensure development is progressive as they build on previous knowledge from units already studied. All children in KS2 are taught French in a weekly discreet lesson. This is delivered by the class teacher. KS1 children are introduced to MFL through exploring other languages informally when studying another country. Songs will be learnt in French during class assemblies and signs around the school will also be displayed to make language learning more meaningful and give it a purpose

Impact

The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. Pupils should leave school equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, with confidence at Key Stage 3.

The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary 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 stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for Languages.

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