French

Intent

At Arlecdon Primary School, we believe that studying a language in primary school provides children with skills that are essential for modern life. We currently use the Language Angels scheme of work and resources to ensure we offer a relevant, broad, vibrant and ambitious foreign languages curriculum that will inspire and excite our pupils using a wide variety of topics and themes. Our curriculum aims to develop the children’s interest in the wider world and broaden their awareness of cultural differences, whilst promoting the British values of respect and tolerance. All pupils will be expected to achieve their full potential by encouraging high expectations and excellent standards in their foreign language learning – the ultimate aim being that pupils will feel willing and able to continue studying languages beyond key stage 2. 

 Our aim is to develop an enthusiastic and positive attitude to other languages and language learning; We hope to encourage a life-long learning of languages among our pupils in order to enhance their understanding of the world and their future economic well-being. We believe that this will aid our pupils to have high aspirations for their future careers as being able to speak a foreign language can be very beneficial and will provide many opportunities. 

It helps children to develop communication skills as well as give them a new and broader perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own traditions and those of others. Our intention is to provide children with a love for learning new languages and an appreciation of the differences and nuances of foreign grammatical structures. 

Curriculum Overview:

Skills:

The four key language learning skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing will be taught and all necessary grammar will be covered in an age-appropriate way across the primary phase. This will enable pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts, laying down solid foundations for future language learning and also helping the children improve overall attainment in other subject areas. In addition, the children will be taught how to look up and research language they are unsure of and they will have a bank of reference materials to help them with their spoken and written tasks going forward. This bank of reference materials will develop into a reference library to help pupils recall and build on previous knowledge throughout their primary school language learning journey. 

Enrichment:

Children are encouraged to practise their skills across the school and not just in their French lessons. The date is always displayed in French on the whiteboards, registers are taken in French and common phrases within the classroom are expressed in French by both children and staff alike, to allow for a more contextual use of the language. Common classroom items are labelled in French to allow children to become familiar with the written language, and playground signs of colours, numbers and days are also displayed where all children in the school can access them, leading to curiosity and discussion.