MFL-French Curriculum Statement of Intent
Our School Vision: Kind, Ready, Safe
Raglan is a forward thinking learning community where everyone makes outstanding progress and feels safe, included and valued. It is a place where staff, Governors and parents work collaboratively to provide a creative, aspirational and inspiring learning adventure.
Our children love to learn, welcome challenge and are not afraid to make mistakes. They are confident, curious and questioning and will become active and informed global citizens able to succeed in a complex, changing world.
Intent
At Raglan, we believe in the importance of embracing a diverse and inclusive curriculum and community amongst our students, which includes knowledge and understanding of foreign languages. The importance of learning French is based on both research and academic requirements needed for continued learning in secondary school and further education (DfE) National curriculum in England: languages programmes of study – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). By providing the foundation for learning a second language we are equipping our students with multiple skills for navigating the dynamic communities and world we live in. These skills include both cognitive and social aspects, ranging from being able to read, write, and speak in French to developing a deeper appreciation and application of the language to meet the rising need for multilingual speakers in a variety of environments—school, home, play, work.
We encourage our students to see learning French as a way to broaden their curricular knowledge and build upon their English skills, which in turn can help them in acquiring the language skills that would be needed and used in French. The French curriculum we follow makes links between our curriculum topics and builds upon each other so that our students show progression through year groups 3-6.
Our intentions for our students to learn French include:
- The 4 core skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing
- Show progression in content, phonics and grammar
- Develop ‘Language Detective’ Skills for language learning that include memory, recall, listening and responding, sound-spelling links, bilingual dictionary skills, and emergent writing
- Allow for assessment based upon the Primary Languages Network (PLN) Afl clouds and formal Puzzle it out assessments
Implementation
Our French curriculum is based through the Primary Languages Network platform which gives teachers the flexibility to demonstrate their confidence in teaching French through three schemes of work.
These include:
Premium Plus- very limited teacher knowledge of language
- Click To Teach- limited teacher knowledge/ limited curriculum time
- BeCreative- Developing language teaching knowledge/ teachers with good language knowledge/specialist teachers
Teachers can navigate through these virtual learning environments and cover a wide variety of lessons. The PLN curriculum focuses on the development of phonological and grammatical awareness in addition to a broadening of vocabulary. The curriculum is taught through different topics which are completed in a logical order. In addition, the curriculum is designed so that pupils have sequences of lessons on each topic that they cover in depth. These lessons are very structured and there are frequent chances to revise previous learning before moving on. Students are able to do more and remember more because they are already familiar with certain content, such as adjectives. They revisit and extend their vocabulary as they progress. Students learn single words, then use these in increasingly complex sentences, applying grammar correctly. Phonics is integrated as part of teaching, there are models for correct pronunciation, students are taught to understand the links between how French words are written and how they are pronounced. These activities are facilitated through curriculum plans accessed via PLN and the practical use of bilingual dictionaries, which are available in all Year 3-6 classrooms.
Impact
The success of utilizing PLN for teaching French across our school is evident in teacher’s confidence in teaching the curriculum, where the schemes of work provide support for how to deliver lessons, providing online support and continuous professional development. School displays and assemblies to highlight the importance of learning a language. Each classroom has a French display board that focuses on current topics and language skills. Whole school assemblies such as International Mother Language Day (21st February) or European Day of Languages (26th September) promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and promote multilingualism. By the time our students leave our school they will know the importance of languages, have increased cultural awareness, and embrace celebrating difference and exploring the international dimension of education.