Intent

Here at Trottiscliffe CE Primary School we work hard to ensure children gain an understanding of the world and learn to celebrate other cultures. We believe that children should be encouraged to learn to communicate in other languages both for pleasure and practical purposes. We hope to provide the children with a foundation to continue learning languages and equip them with the skills to work and study abroad. Our pupils are supported to meet the National curriculum end of Key Stage 2 attainment targets (as there are no attainment targets for Key Stage 1) although we do provide opportunities for younger pupils to become familiar with French using bilingual stories. 

Implementation

At Trottiscliffe we learn French following the Kapow scheme of work where children progress in their learning and build upon their prior knowledge as they move through the school. Our curriculum overview shows which units cover each of the national curriculum attainment targets and our progression of skills shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills are developed to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2. We provide children with the opportunity to use and share their foreign languages through events like French Cafe and doing plenty of in class role play. We also ensure there are opportunities for the children to write in French too. In years 3/4 the focus is weighted towards the development of oral skills, but by years 5/6 the focus is more balanced between reading, writing, speaking and comprehension. The Kapow curriculum is a spiral curriculum, which means that key skills and vocabulary are revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, thus allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. 

In KS2 French is taught fortnightly for an hour by the class teacher and a French language speaker. In KS1 we share bilingual stories with the children to help familiarise them with other languages. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. The scheme focuses on developing an understanding of French grammar rather than memorising reams of vocabulary. 

Impact

The impact of our French teaching is monitored continuously by both formative and summative assessment strategies. We assess the skills and knowledge  learned at the end points and during fortnightly lessons, as well as:

• Lesson observations
• Book scrutiny
• Pupil Voice

We expect pupils to leave Trottiscliffe with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.These include:

• Being able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g. ordering in a cafe, following directions) and express an opinion. 
• Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases and short texts.
• Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation.
• Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding appropriately.
• Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning. 
• Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have learnt.
• Have developed an awareness of near-cognates and be able to use them to tackle unfamiliar words in French, English and other languages.
• Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics.
• Meet the end of Key Stage 2 expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Languages.