Our school vision

"This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118 

Our curriculum vision for MFL 

Languages are important for global citizens of the future, raising an awareness of the multilingual and multicultural world in which we live and introducing an international dimension to children’s learning. From Reception, children learn to greet each other in a wide range of languages while doing the register, developing  curiosity about people in the wider world.

 At Finchampstead School, the children learn French more formally throughout Key Stage 2 with a  focus on listening and speaking. We aim to encourage enjoyment and confidence in language learning, hopefully inspiring children to go on to secondary school feeling positive and open to learning a wider range of languages available. With its roots in Latin, we can investigate etymology and the many similarities between French and English.  In Key Stage 2, the children are encouraged to share their language learning with their families by taking home their Year group’s French sac containing recipes, games and books. Every summer, the children in year 6 run a French cafe to raise money to buy further French language resources.

Intent

Learners will

  • Develop resilience in language learning as well as enjoyment of it through a challenging scheme of work
  • Acquire language learning strategies for memorisation and retrieval as well as for listening, reading and understanding
  • Develop the skill of how to use a bi-lingual dictionary to decode unfamiliar language
  • Be able to manipulate language to speak or write sentences creatively using prior knowledge of grammar and key features; with and without a dictionary
  • Have a sound grasp of the key sounds of the French language and their corresponding graphemes and be able to apply this knowledge when speaking, listening and reading aloud
  • Recognise some of the language patterns of French and how these differ or are similar to English
  • Appreciate and be able to copy the sound of the language at text level through songs, stories and rhymes
  • Have a deeper understanding of cultural differences and similarities
  • Demonstrate substantial progress in learning French and work towards or meet the targets of the KS2 Programme of Study for Languages

See the ‘Language Overview’ document for specific vocabulary.

Years 3 and 4 – Skills and Knowledge

Skills

  • Listen, read and show understanding of single words
  • Listen, read and show understanding of short phrases in texts as well as songs and rhymes
  • Recognise a familiar question and respond
  • Ask and answer several simple and familiar questions
  • Write and say a sentence with single familiar words and a connective with support and confident to attempt it without
  • Write and say a simple phrase to describe people, places and things with a language scaffold as well as be confident to do the same without support
  • Recognise some letter strings and pronounce them in familiar words
  • Read aloud short familiar sentences using knowledge of phonics
  • Use strategies for memorising vocabulary
  • Find the meaning of word in a bi-lingual dictionary
  • Use a bi-lingual dictionary  to find the meaning or translation of a word
  • Join in with the actions of familiar songs, stories and rhymes
  • Join in with the words of familiar songs, stories and rhymes sometimes from memory

Knowledge

  • Awareness that different word classes exist in French and know some vocabulary for nouns, adjectives, verbs, pronouns, adverbs and conjunction
  • 1st and 2nd person pronouns with irregular high frequency verbs
  • Awareness that there are 2 groups of nouns in French
  • 2 forms of ‘you’ in French
  • Awareness that letters in French can make a different sound to English and silent letters are frequent
  • Formation of a question with rising intonation
  • Pattern of questions with question words
  • Awareness of silent letters
  • Awareness of elision
  • Rules for making nouns plural
  • Making a sentence say not
  • Position of colour adjectives in a sentence
  • Awareness that French is spoken in other countries besides France
  • Some French speaking countries in Europe

Years 5 and 6 – Skills and Knowledge

Skills

  • Listen, read and show understanding of more complex familiar phrases and sentences in texts
  • Listen, read and show understanding of more complex sentences using familiar and unfamiliar words
  • Ask and answer more complex familiar questions
  • Engage in a short conversation using familiar questions and express opinions
  • Write and say a more complex sentence to describe people, places and things with a language scaffold as well as be confident to do the same without support
  • Write and say a more complex sentence to describe people, places and things manipulating language with a bi-lingual dictionary as well as be confident to do the same without support
  • Read aloud more complex familiar sentences using knowledge of phonics
  • Pronounce unfamiliar words in a sentence with a high degree of accuracy using phonic knowledge
  • Use a bi-lingual dictionary  to find the meaning of nouns in the plural, adjectives in agreement and conjugated verbs
  • Follow the text of a familiar rhyme, song or story and identify the meaning of the words
  • Read aloud the text of familiar songs, rhymes and stories

Knowledge

  • Indefinite article and gender of nouns
  • Plural nouns
  • Rules of agreement of adjectives in the singular and plural
  • Position of majority of adjectives in a sentence
  • 1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural of an irregular high frequency verb
  • Development of understanding of formation of questions
  • 1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular pronouns and 3rd person plural pronouns and verb conjugation for regular -er verbs
  • Formal use of ‘you’ with regular and irregular high frequency verbs
  • Formation of a question with rising intonation
  • Pattern of questions with question words
  • Partitive in singular and plural
  • Definite article
  • Formation of a relative clause
  • Elision
  • Concept of liaison
  • Traditional songs and rhymes

  • The lesson plans indicate which activity is an opportunity to assess progress and is linked to the KS2 targets and in particular to those of the appropriate year group as detailed above
  • A teacher assessment grid is provided to record attainment of each target for each skill in each year group and to track progress
  • Evidence of speaking activities can be gathered by making audio recordings of the suggested activities in the lesson plans
  • Children self-assess their progress at the end of each section of work using a traffic light system and comment on their grasp of the new knowledge. In addition, there is space for teachers to provide a written response
  • Based on the evidence of the above records of achievement and progress, teachers can inform parents/guardians of this, using report statements which relate to the expected targets of each year group under the headings ‘working towards, meeting and exceeding’
  • To enhance the impact on enjoyment and intercultural understanding, we try organising language events such as the annual French cafe; provide access to out-of-school online materials; take-home French Sacs of resources etc.
  • All of the above provides evidence that the ‘statements of intent’ are met

How Do We Grow A Finchampstead Linguist?

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Children in KS2 have the opportunity to take home a French sac appropriate to their year group. They may keep this for a week to read the books, try the recipes and play the games. They add to the journal to show what they enjoyed about the sacs.

Implementation

  • The lesson plans are designed to be 30 minutes in length for Years 3/4. There are follow-up activities to each lesson to increase the exposure time in a week
  • Lessons are planned over a two year cycle to allow for learning in mixed age classes.
  • The lessons are designed to be progressive and build on prior learning, moving from word to sentence level over the four years
  • In Years 3 and 4 the same structures and grammatical knowledge are revisited in both cycles, however, the vocabulary is different.
  • The lesson plans include ideas for support for the less able and to extend the more able
  • The lesson activities are challenging, varied and interactive and develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills
  • Interactive whiteboard resources with audio support are provided; purchase of a set of storybooks and phonics book is a requisite to access the scheme and additional resources are recommended particularly for songs and rhymes
  • The choice of vocabulary ensures exposure to all the key phonic sounds and ability to build sentences using grammatical knowledge
  • Who teaches the scheme to ensure high quality lessons is at the discretion of the school but linguistic up-skilling and methodology training is available to support its delivery as well as detailed lesson plans linked to ready-made resource templates and audio recordings of stories and rhymes read by a native speaker
  • It is expected that formative assessment in each lesson informs the planning and teaching of subsequent lesson plans.

Goldfinch class loved sharing the French books they had written ( Le Monstre a Faim ) with the children in Rosefinch class.

Summer 2022: After two years of Covid restrictions, Year 5 and 6 were excited to be hosting the French cafe at the summer open evening. They practised their key phrases and prepared the French menus ready for their customers.

Goldfinch class loved reading The Hobbit. They described Smaug in French making sure that their nouns and adjectives agreed.

October 2022

It was a pleasure to talk to some of the KS2 children today about their French lessons. They were an enthusiastic group who were very positive about learning languages.

What do you enjoy about learning French?

Y6 - I've enjoyed learning colour names and using them to describe animals. I like being able to say things in other languages.

Y5 - The French sacks are fun. I like learning to make French food. The songs are the best part - they help you remember the French words.

Y4 - We've learnt words like stand, sit, look, listen. It's good to keep saying the words again and again to help you remember them.

Y3 - We like finding out what French words mean. I like the French sac - it was fun making the crepes and playing the games.

What did you learn in your last lesson?

Y6 - We learnt a French song to remember the colours. We learnt the feminine words for colours.

Y5 - We learnt how to describe animals with colours.

Y4 - We have learnt commands.

Y3- We learnt to count to 5.

Why is it important to learn to speak another language?

It helps you with some jobs. 

You can do a language degree at university.

It's nice to speak a language when you go on holiday.

It helps you learn to speak other languages: French, Spanish and Italian are all Latino languages and are similar.

My dad speaks Spanish and it's good when you are in another country that speaks Spanish.

When is it easy and when is it hard? What helps you?

Y6 - It's easy when I can use my knowledge from last year but it's trickier to put it into  a new sentence. We can look at the board for examples to help us.

Y5 - I can remember colours because it's in my vocabulary book. The French dictionary is really useful.

Y4 -  the songs are really helpful to make it easy to remember.

Y3 - songs make it catchy.

How do you know if you've done well in the lesson?

Y6 - The teacher gives us praise. If I can help others, I know I've done ok.

Y5 - We get positive comments and nods

Y4 - The teacher says tres bien.

What do you think you'll learn in the next lesson?

Y6 - we'll be describing more things.

Y5 - we need to have the right grammar to write sentences.

Y4 - I want to learn about French culture

Y3 - Maybe higher numbers like 5-10

Implementation

  • The lesson plans are designed to be 45 minutes in length for Years 5/6. There are follow-up activities to each lesson to increase the exposure time in a week
  • Learning in year 5 and 6 is planned in two-year cycles due to the children learning in mixed age classes.
  • The lessons are designed to be progressive and build on prior learning, moving from word to sentence level over the four years
  • In Years 5 and 6 some of the same structures are revisited but only by completing the two year cycle will all the knowledge and skills be covered
  • The lesson plans include ideas for support for the less able and to extend the more able
  • The lesson activities are challenging, varied and interactive and develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills
  • Interactive whiteboard resources with audio support are provided; purchase of a set of storybooks and phonics book is a requisite to access the scheme and additional resources are recommended particularly for songs and rhymes
  • The choice of vocabulary ensures exposure to all the key phonic sounds and ability to build sentences using grammatical knowledge
  • Who teaches the scheme to ensure high quality lessons is at the discretion of the school but linguistic up-skilling and methodology training is available to support its delivery as well as detailed lesson plans linked to ready-made resource templates and audio recordings of stories and rhymes read by a native speaker
  • It is expected that formative assessment in each lesson informs the planning and teaching of subsequent lesson plans