Modern Foreign Languages (French) at Plympton St Maurice Primary School

 At Plympton St Maurice Primary School, we follow a fun and exciting Modern Foreign Languages scheme called Ilanguages. Though MFL is mainly taught in KS2 there are opportunities within the Foundation KS1 curriculum as well to learn some basic French vocabulary.

Intent for MFL

Our MFL curriculum is designed to meet the content requirements of the agreed syllabus. There is a set amount of time specified for each year group. Through our French lessons, children should be able to develop Life skills, Understanding, Nurture curiosity, Aspiration and Resilience.

At Plympton St Maurice Primary School, we believe that the learning of a language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, with an aim of making substantial progress in one language. In addition, children’s knowledge of how language works will be developed to lay the foundations for further language learning in future. We believe that learning another language gives children a new and broader perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others.

Implementation for MFL

Our French curriculum encompasses:

Social and emotional learning,

Talk,

Mastery Learning,

the Arts,

Understand Learning,

Resilience,

Independent Personal learning and thinking,

Collaborative Learning and

Experience rich curriculum.

Children develop their love of language learning and develop skills throughout their time in school.

In KS2, children are taught in weekly or bi weekly sessions. We aim for our children to develop an appreciation of songs and stories in French throughout their time at the school.

Our school follows the French languages scheme of work, which is adapted to meet the needs of our own children. Since primary languages became statutory in the primary curriculum recently, children have been advancing through this scheme of work. As we acknowledge children’s different learning styles, our children learn through active participation in actions, rhymes, stories, song, grammar focus, video clips, sentence structure, dictionary work, book making and many more creative ways to extend, embed and combine language skills.

Our languages curriculum is reinforced by our residential trip to Brest, France, when pupils in Year 5 and 6 are able to put into practise their language learning and develop a wider cultural appreciation of the French language. This acts as a great motivation for language learning and develops historical and intercultural understanding. During this trip, children visit L’Ecole de Jacques Prevert.

During the summer term, Year 6 organise a French style café to further use their language skills in a positive and purposeful way by advertising in French, preparing French food and speaking only French within the cafe.

Impact for MFL

Our French curriculum ensures all pupils develop key language learning skills, as set out by the national curriculum, as well as a love of languages and learning about other cultures. Pupils learn to:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in French.