At St John's CE Primary Academy we want every child to be an enthusiastic learner of French and to be eager to achieve their very best in order to fulfil their God-given talents. We firmly believe that the recipe for success is high-quality first-wave teaching in French, which is central to the life of our happy, caring school.

Intent 

• Our principal aim is that children see learning a foreign language as an enjoyable, relevant, ongoing process and not a one-off event.
• Children will meet the National Curriculum expectations in French.
• All Key Stage 2 children will study French (including Intercultural links teaching).

The French scheme of work aims to instill 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.

Through our 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, developing a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future.

The French scheme of work supports pupils to meet the National curriculum end of Key stage 2 attainment targets (there are no Key stage 1 attainment targets for Languages).

Implementation 

• Carefully designed schemes of learning in French ensure consistency and progress of all learners.
• Success criteria in every French lesson are set in order to guide children to achieve their potential.
• This ensures work is demanding and matches the aims of the curriculum. Where necessary, staff will receive training in French.

The French scheme of work is designed with three knowledge strands that run throughout our units with knowledge building cumulatively.

These are:

● Phonics

● Vocabulary

● Grammar

This knowledge can then be applied within our skills strands, which also run throughout each unit in the scheme:

● Language comprehension (Listening and reading)

● Language production (Speaking and writing)

Our National curriculum coverage shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.

Our Progression of skills and knowledge 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 the 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, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond.

The 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, and key vocabulary rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Pronunciation is emphasised early on using our Mouth mechanics videos to support pupils with phoneme pronunciation in French.

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.

Assessment

High-quality teaching responds to the needs of children. Spaced learning is a key focus of all formative and summative assessments with teachers actively marking work in lessons in order to identify misconceptions early.  

Impact 

• Children of all abilities and backgrounds achieve well in French, reflected in a clear learning journey. Children talk enthusiastically about their learning in French and are eager to further their learning in the next stages of their education.
• Through wider reading and experiences in French, children will gain an appreciation and understanding of the country and some of its historical links to other parts of the world and historical events.

The impact of the scheme can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. 

After the implementation of French, pupils should leave school equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.

The expected impact of following the 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.