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French

Confident and capable French learners

Intent

Skelton School's French curriculum aims to instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want pupils to develop the confidence and capability to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. Through our curriculum, 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.  Our French curriculum ensures coverage of the national curriculum and supports pupils to meet the national curriculum end of Key stage 2 attainment targets.  

Implementation

Our curriculum is designed with six strands that run throughout.

These are:

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

Pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The curriculum provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French. This begins with an emphasis on developing oral skills before incorporating written French as the children's understanding progresses.   

Skelton School's curriculum 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. 

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective languages curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD.  All lessons are fully supported with 'Teacher knowledge - language points' to explain key grammar and other important details. Each lesson also includes a key vocabulary and pronunciation presentation with sound files to demonstrate the correct pronunciation so that accurate modelling of the key vocabulary is assured. 

French is taught from Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 for 50 minutes every week and is supported with a digital learning journal where  children can record the full range of their French learning including the speaking and pronunciation strand. 

Impact

The impact can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. The use of a digital learning journal allows teachers to look back at previous learning and consider children’s progress in each lesson. 

After the implementation of our French curriculum, 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 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.

Curriculum Map

Progression of Skills

Y3/4 Cycle A Knowledge organisers - A child friendly summary of learning for each unit.

Y5/6 Knowledge organisers - A child friendly overview of the key learning of each French unit.

Find below some work examples of children in Y3/4 from their recent learning about adjectives of colour, size and shape.