French

Intent

French Skills and Knowledge Progression

French Long Term Curriculum Plan

Through our French curriculum at St Michael’s, we aim to instil a life-long love of language learning and an awareness and understanding of other cultures. We want our children to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, and through our chosen scheme of work, we aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages as they progress into secondary school and beyond. We also aim for our French curriculum to help children develop a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future.

 

Implementation

At St Michael’s we have chosen to use Kapow Primary as our chosen programme for delivering the modern foreign languages curriculum to KS2. The Kapow French scheme of work is designed with six strands that run throughout. These are:

 

  • Speaking and pronunciation
  • Listening
  • Reading and writing
  • Grammar
  • Intercultural understanding
  • Language detective skills

 

 Our long-term curriculum map shows when each unit is taught, and our skills and knowledge progression document shows the skills and knowledge that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2.

 Through Kapow Primary’s French scheme, 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, beginning with oral skills. The Kapow Primary scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary 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.

 Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all. In order to help pupils retain their French learning, we provide information about how to incorporate French into the classroom environment every day in our ‘During the week’ sections.

 French is taught in alternate half terms at St Michael’s and is timetabled for one hour per week during those terms. It is only taught to KS2 and, due to the small size of our school, it is taught to the whole of KS2 together. Our skills progression document helps to ensure that those who are older and have more experience of French learning are able to build on previous skills as they go through the key stage.

 

Impact

The impact of our French curriculum can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives in order to build a picture of each child’s learning through each unit.

 After the implementation of our curriculum using Kapow Primary, our children will leave St Michael’s equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.