Bonjour! Our French Curriculum encapsulates the pleasure of learning a beautiful and rich language. Through our wonderfully interactive programmes we embrace the rhythm and culture allowing our listening, speaking and writing skills to flourish. Our French learning encompasses all aspects of our life, from our families and friends, our school, our bodies and our pets before setting out into the wider world. C’est un voyage fantastique!
Languages Curriculum Intent
At Highburton First School Primary Academy we believe that the learning of French provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, with an aim of making substantial progress in one language. In addition, children’s knowledge of how language works will be developed to lay the foundations for further language development in Middle School. We believe that learning another language gives children a new and broader perspective on the world, preparing them to be global citizens. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.
Languages Curriculum Implementation
Children in Key Stage 2 at Highburton First Academy follow a clear and comprehensive scheme of work for our main target language of French in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum. Our scheme is based on the Rising Stars Primary French materials adapted to meet the specific needs of all our children. Details of studies to be covered in each year group are set out in the Language Curriculum Map. Children’s different learning styles are acknowledged and catered for through active participation in actions, rhymes, stories, song, grammar focus, video clips, sentence structure, and many more creative ways to extend, embed and combine language skills.
Core language provision is enhanced from Year 3 to Year 5 through a wider range of experiences to develop cultural capital this will include taster experiences of other languages, To successfully match pupil ability to the French curriculum we ensure that all children with SEND are fully included in all activities in order to promote the highest level of achievement. Children with SEND will access the same curriculum through differentiated learning materials, access to ICT, additional support in class and flexible groupings.
Languages Curriculum Impact
The impact will be clearly shown through pupils developing key language skills, as set out by the national curriculum, and a love of languages and learning about other cultures. Children will have greater knowledge about specified languages and countries. Children will be able to understand and respond to spoken and written language. They will speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation. Pupils will develop the ability to write for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learned.
Languages Curriculum Map
Our Languages Curriculum Map gives an overview of which studies are taught in which year group and within each half term. When introducing French in year 3, pupils also complete a term long study about Paris and France in Geography to broaden their knowledge and understanding and challenge stereotypes.
Languages Curriculum Skills and Critical Content
Our curriculum skills for Languages show the progression of skills within each year group as well as between each year group in Key Stage 2.
Critical content for our recovery curriculum in Languages has been evaluated and our priority is on based around lost and critical content needed for progression and links between concepts to be made. We feel a key overriding skill throughout the whole of Key Stage 2 needs to be that of speaking and listening as our pupils need to be confident to speak and listen in French before they can develop confidence in reading and writing in it.
Within the essential speaking and listening building blocks, it is crucial that we focus on children’s understanding grammar. In particular, it is vital that children understand basic word order and as pupils progress through Key Stage 2, it is vital that children have understanding gender, adjectival agreements and the definite article.
It is crucial for our pupils to have the opportunity to recap/reinforce essential vocabulary for basic conversation/speaking and listening (e.g. greetings, simple questions and answers, classroom instructions). This may mean all year groups need to revisit critical content from Rising Stars Primary French Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 to ensure these building blocks are secure before continuing with the planned unit.
Pupil Voice
We regularly conference pupils to gain an awareness of their attitudes to a range of curriculum subjects. Below is a sample of thoughts from a range of pupils about how they feel about the Computing curriculum at Highburton First Academy.
Stanley – Y3
We have learnt a lot about France as a country and we know how to introduce ourselves in French.
Isla – Y3
We use a programme on the whiteboard to help us learn. I think the scenes are good and they tell us how to pronounce things properly. The games are also really good.
Brodie – Y4
I really enjoy French because you get to learn to speak another language. This is important as when you visit the country you may have some words that can help you.
Jake – Y5
We use the game Simon says to learn how to follow instructions and show actions. I like doing this as it helps us to learn and we get house points.
Kaiya – Y5
I like that speaking French is a good life skill to have. It shows respect that we can speak some of their language when we visit the country.