Modern Foreign Languages

General Statement

At The Blue School we follow the new National Curriculum for languages.

We believe that the learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills including key skills of speaking and listening and extends their knowledge of how language works.

Learning another language gives children a new perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others.

Although Primary Languages cuts across the curriculum, children are taught specific skills, concepts and vocabulary in a weekly dedicated lesson with the specialist native languages teacher. The language chosen by our school is French. French is taught at Key Stage Two for 30 minutes per week in year 3 and 40 minutes in year 4-5-6.

This page provides prospective parents and visitors with a glimpse into our curriculum. Parents of Blue School pupils are provided with detailed guides to subject planning in the form of ‘Knowledge Organisers’ in Parent Zone.

Vision Statement

Learning another language is the key that opens so many exciting doors in the world. Our children receive a tailored French curriculum which allows them to gain knowledge, skills and confidence as they progress into young linguists. We link the French curriculum with experiences and contexts that the children are familiar with, allowing them to use the language for both purpose and fun. Our journey allows children to build their spoken as well as their grammar skills.

Inclusion

Primary Languages teaching at The Blue School is fully inclusive. No child is excluded by reason of a learning difficulty, or because they have English as an additional language. Experience has indeed shown that such children can derive particular benefit from taking part in Primary Languages learning activities in which they may be less disadvantaged than in other areas of the curriculum.

Lower Key Stage 2

By the end of Year 4, children will understand that all nouns have a gender and the definite article will be masculine/feminine or plural. They will also understand that adjectives change depending on the gender and plurality of the noun. They will be able to use simple conjunctions like ‘and’ and ‘but’ and will have been introduced to the present tense of regular verbs and the negative form.

Pupils build up a larger bank of spoken vocabulary and will further their knowledge by learning how to create longer and more complex spoken sentences within a topic. They begin to understand very short passages of spoken language, based on taught language with more new language weaved in. They will learn how to decode passages of text they are presented with by finding the language they are familiar with, applying their knowledge to language they are less familiar with and learning to use a dictionary to understand language that is new to them. Pupils will now be able to start writing full sentences with increased ease and improved accuracy. Children will learn about French culture through learning about Black History, festivals, history, music, sport and art.

Upper Key Stage 2

By the end of Year 6, children will have revisited the different themes in French culture and built on them in greater depth, learning more about French life. Pupils speak with improved fluency and ease using full sentences on a wider variety of topics. Pupils engage in longer conversations on a much wider range of topics. They will be able to accurately and easily use transferable language along with the new vocabulary they learn in the progressive units of Language Angels. They will be able to recall key regular and irregular verbs, adjectives and conjunctions and use them accurately in different Progressive units including: ‘At School’, ‘The Weekend’, ‘Me in the World’, ‘Healthy Lifestyles’, ‘The Planets’, ‘WWII’, ‘Habitats’. Pupils are exposed to much more authentic foreign language material to listen to. This material is delivered at near native speed and covers a much wider range of topics. They will also read longer, more authentic passages of text. Pupils are taught how to make their written work more interesting, authentic and sophisticated by using a greater variety of conjunctions, opinions and justifications.

Cross-curricular links are particularly interwoven between art, music and history which can involve children creating a French play set in a Monet art exhibition where they perform their own songs on ukuleles. French history includes such diverse subjects as: the caves at Lascaux, ancient Gaul and the development of French from Latin, the Norman Conquest and the Armistice. Learning about different aspects of France and her culture brings the study of the language alive for the children and results in more interest and engagement in learning the language.