INTENT

At The Holt Primary School, we aim to develop the teaching and learning of French and Spanish across Key stage 2, preparing children for future opportunities in French and Spanish speaking countries. We follow the PlanIt French and PlanIt Spanish Schemes of work so that we can offer carefully planned sequences of lessons, ensuring progressive coverage of the skills required by the national curriculum. Our work begins with an introduction to where France and Spain are located and an introduction about what it might be like to live there. This will provide an introduction to the culture of French & Spanish-speaking countries and communities. It aims to foster children’s curiosity and help deepen their understanding of the world. A linear curriculum has been chosen to allow opportunity for children to gradually build on their skills. PlanIt French & Spanish enable children to express their ideas and thoughts in French and Spanish and provides opportunities to interact and communicate with others both in speech and in writing. At the heart of PlanIt French & Spanish is the desire to expose children to authentic French & Spanish, so the scheme offers regular opportunities to listen to native speakers.

In Lower KS2, children acquire basic skills and understanding of French with a strong emphasis placed on developing their Speaking and Listening skills. These will be embedded and further developed in Upper KS2, alongside Reading and Writing, gradually progressing onto more complex language concepts and greater learner autonomy. In Year 6, our pupils will be able to compare the learning they have acquired in their French lessons with their new learning about Spanish.  This will give our pupils exposure to two languages before they leave primary school and will help them to make informed choices about how they wish to continue their learning of languages in the future. Through our PlanIt French & Spanish scheme, we intend to inspire pupils to develop a love of languages and to expand their horizons to other countries, cultures and people. We aim to help children grow into curious, confident and reflective language learners and to provide them with a foundation that will equip them for further language studies.

'With languages, you are at home anywhere.' Edmund de Waal

IMPLEMENTATION

Year 3 - 5 are taught French and then in Year 6, our pupils are given the opportunity to compare their learning with another language, Spanish.  Our approach is to make learning a new language fun.   Young pupils are very receptive to learning a new language; they like to mimic pronunciation and they can easily pick up and duplicate new sounds. They feel a real sense of accomplishment when they learn to say something new. We will have discreet lessons on the timetable but we will also integrate the foreign language into the everyday routine.

National Curriculum Language Programmes of Study

National curriculum in England: languages programmes of study - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

 In all MfL lessons we will reinforce our school’s characteristics of good learning:

 Respect. Reflective. Responsible. Resourceful. Resilient. Reasoning.

Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammar are built in.

Our lessons and resources help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills. A series of lessons are suggested, providing structure and context as well as offering an insight into the culture of French-speaking countries and communities. The introduction and revision of key vocabulary and grammatical structures is built into each lesson. This vocabulary is then included in display materials and additional resources so that children have opportunities to repeat and revise their learning. PlanIt French & PlanIt Spanish has been designed by our language specialist teaching team, including French & Spanish native speakers, so that teachers feel confident and supported. All of our lesson packs contain adult guidance, accurate language subject knowledge and accompanying audio materials.

IMPACT

Our MFL Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. By the end of the primary journey, we aim for all our pupils to have developed a basic acquisition of spoken French and Spanish and with increasing confidence be able to write in another language. By developing an enthusiasm for learning other languages, we aim to empower our pupils for further study and their future.

If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes
• A celebration of learning at the end of a unit
• Pupil discussions about their learning

The impact of our MFL curriculum will be measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against statements outlines within our progression documents.

Assessment procedures

Teachers will use ongoing assessment for learning techniques to support the development of vocabulary and the acquisition of new knowledge.  A range of information gathering activities such as learning flashbacks and progress pauses will be used to ascertain how well children are learning within this subject and what they need next to support their understanding.