“The aim of our foreign language lessons is to inspire a curiosity of other cultures and an understanding of the world through the development of speech and communication skills.”
Mr Burton (MFL Lead)
Exploring the world through language
Our aim is to develop the confidence and competence of each child in our chosen modern foreign language of French. Our goal is for them to be passionate, curious, and confident about their own foreign language learning abilities when they finish the primary school phase of their education.
Learning a foreign language is an opportunity to learn about the wider world, develop an understanding and respect of other countries and cultures, and to deepen understanding of our own culture and traditions.
To learn a language requires new approaches to learning, challenging children’s current thinking whilst giving pupils cross-curricular knowledge through drawing comparisons and similarities with our own language and history.
The Big Ideas
Within the MFL curriculum, we focus on 3 big ideas:
Humankind: Children learn to express their ideas and thoughts in another language, and to understand and respond to its speakers through developing vocabulary along with written and spoken means of communication.
Place: Foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world by learning about French places, cultures, and traditions, and furthermore will learn about other French-speaking countries.
Significance: Pupils will learn about French history, traditions, people, and events that have shaped modern France. Children will also learn about the spread of the French language throughout the world and the modern-day impact of this.
National Curriculum Coverage
From an early stage, children will develop communication skills in listening and speaking, reading and writing including learning about gendered, singular and plural nouns. Spelling patterns, sound recognition and pronunciation are continually developed alongside their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. Subject units are based upon relatable topics such as food, family, and weather with a focus on giving opinions and description.
Assessment
Skills and knowledge within the curriculum are separated into ‘milestones’. Each Milestone contains a range of descriptors that support the children’s progression within the subject. Download our ‘Milestones’ document to see the skills expected within each milestone.