French at Oak Meadow

‘A high-quality languages’ education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing.’ (National Curriculum 2014 – Appendix A)

Learning a language enriches the curriculum, helping to create enthusiastic learners and to develop positive attitudes to language learning throughout life. The skills, knowledge and understanding gained contribute to the development of children’s oracy and literacy and to their understanding of their own culture and those of others. Our MFL curriculum supports our children in deepening their understanding of the world and how we fit in with our global community. Furthermore, the learning of a foreign language provides a medium for cross-curricular links and for reinforcement of knowledge, skills and understanding developed in other subjects; our curriculum ensures that these opportunities are an integral part of our learning. The focus language at Oak Meadow is French, and we have designed our curriculum around an ambitious scheme of work that is intended to inspire curiosity and a love of languages that pupils will strengthen and develop as they progress through our school.

Our core school values of show empathy, be healthy, be curious, be ambitious and be creative are key to encouraging our children to experiment with their learning, developing the confidence to converse openly in lessons through expressing their own individual opinions and creating opportunities to perform with peers. Tasks are planned carefully to build on previous learning, broaden vocabulary and develop understanding of new vocabulary and basic grammar. This ensures that all children are given opportunities to build on prior knowledge and revisit key concepts so that this knowledge of the French language becomes embedded in their long-term memory.

Our MFL curriculum is taught as a discrete subject once a week to each class in key stage 2 and is split across four strands: speaking, listening, reading and writing, where there are opportunities planned to introduce, embed and consolidate core learning. Children will already have begun to develop their knowledge and understanding of foreign countries and languages through their work around ‘Understanding the World’ in Reception, as well as subjects such as geography and history in the key stage 1 curriculum. There are a number of opportunities created for children to actively converse and express their individual opinions on given topics. Children complete written reading and writing activities, as well as taking opportunities to orally rehearse and ‘perform’, utilising technology to record their conversations and evaluate these using platforms such as Padlet. Assessment opportunities are built into each unit of work, with a reading comprehension challenge forming the culmination of each unit.