INTENT
We really appreciate the value of language learning at St Edward’s C of E Academy. Pupils in all year groups study French, with our Year 8 pupils picking up a short course in Spanish and German.
Our curriculum gives importance to the three pillars of language learning; phonics, vocabulary and grammar. We cover all four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing and we vary our teaching using games, songs, ICT, flashcards, videos and authentic listening materials etc. We believe that learning a language promotes intercultural understanding and social interaction and strengthens the knowledge of how their own language works.
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
Key Stage 2 French:
Pupils learn to greet people, to talk about themselves and others, their families, their homes, their pets, their likes and dislikes. They learn numbers, days, months, dates, clothes, colours, names of classroom objects and how to describe people. They learn about sports and musical instruments. Pupils learn about French phonics and the link between sound and spelling. They learn more about the concepts of number and gender, the use of adjectives including possessives, simple negatives and the present tense of the irregular verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ as well as recognising the ‘-ER’ verb pattern. They learn some facts about the culture and geography of France.
Key Stage 3 French:
Pupils learn names of places in town, to ask for and give directions, food and drink items and to ask for items in shops and in restaurants They learn about school in France, school subjects, to tell the time, to describe their school day, and to talk in detail about sport and leisure activities. In Year 8 pupils learn to talk about future aspirations and plans and to give a detailed account of a past holiday. They learn to give opinions and reasons, and to ask questions. They learn more about life in France and its towns as well as other French speaking countries.
In Year 7, pupils learn the present tense of regular ‘-ER’, ‘–IR’ and ‘–RE’ verbs, as well as some common irregular verbs. They learn reflexive verbs in the present tense and how to use a second verb infinitive. They learn the partitive article, how to use ‘à’ and ‘de’ with the definite article, the negative and a range of prepositions. They learn to recognise imperative verb forms. In Year 8, pupils use verbs in the near future, the perfect tense and work with more adjectives and pronouns. Pupils will also be taught to recognise and use some verbs in the imperfect tense.
LEARNING JOUNREYS
KEYSTONES
ASSESSMENT
In French, we assess the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing in each year group across the year. In addition to this, we do frequent low-stakes retrieval practice as part of in-class learning.
CULTURAL CAPITAL AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Year 7 Visit to France
Celebration of the European Day of Languages each September
Weekly lunch time Languages Club (which includes other languages)
French breakfast as part of our Year 7 Food and Drink topic
French penfriends in Key Stage 3 with our link school in Provence and a French speaking school in Athens, Greece.
