French

Intent

At Millfields Primary School, the intent of our French curriculum is to inspire children at a young age to discover a foreign language and have the joy of being able to communicate in more than just their mother tongue. We know that many of the children in our community already speak more than just English, this will be celebrated in our language learning lessons and we could easily find that those who speak Spanish or Italian can make predictions about what some unknown French words mean. We know that many children will go on to study French at secondary school, so we intend to give them a simple grounding in the language where they can have some basic conversations, recognise some written French words and share some simple ideas in writing. Alongside the practical language learning the children will also gain an appreciation of some cultural and grammatical differences between England and France and this could well help strengthen their understanding of our own grammar patterns.

Implementation

We have chosen to use the interactive teaching resource Rigolo to support our teaching of French so that the children always hear a native speaker alongside their teacher. With the use of cartoon clips, videos and songs, we hope that French will be a fun lesson where children across KS2 (Year 3 upwards) will start with introducing themselves and sharing how they are, followed by building up their vocabulary of words that they use everyday, such as classroom objects and instructions. We will go with the children’s interests as they build up their knowledge of French and create some different learning opportunities as the children progress -  the classroom could well change into a cafe,  a train station or a doctor’s surgery  in order to practise some practical vocabulary that could be useful on a trip to France or a French speaking country.

Impact

At Millfields Primary School, we believe that all children can achieve a basic knowledge of a foreign language and know that making the effort to learn some basic language skills can really help build relationships when travelling or working with people from other cultures. We also hope that children at Millfields learn that it can be a lot of fun to share ideas and thoughts in a language other than their mother-tongue. We want for all of our children to leave us knowing that they have the ability to communicate in a language other than their own, and that this could help them to take part in future language and cultural experiences across their lifetime. 

Languages Leader - Mrs Natasha Bennett

Languages Link Governor - Mr Andrew Foster

Part of the Languages team.