Mereside Academy

Modern Foreign Languages

Curriculum Intent:  

We want our pupils to achieve to a high standard and to foster enjoyment of MFL as a subject in its own right through ensuring that by the end of their time at Mereside C of E Primary Academy they will have experienced:  

· a high-quality language education that fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of their world.  

· foreign language lessons that provide pupils with openings to other cultures.  

· opportunities to appreciate and compare other cultures to support our children in viewing themselves as global citizens who celebrate and value diversity.  

· many opportunities to communicate for practical purposes and to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively across the world.  

· a language curriculum that aims to foster enjoyment, confidence and interest with the aim to motivate our children to continue to thrive as passionate linguists beyond primary education.  

Curriculum Implementation:  

Our school follows the Primary Languages Network scheme of work. It is a live scheme which is continually updated and revised in order to meet with current curriculum standards. Alongside the planning provided, the network also enriches this through accompanying power points, pod casts (spoken by native speakers) links to authentic literature, songs, games, culture points of reference, links to appropriate websites.  

https://primarylanguages.network/primary-french-scheme-of-work

The approach, planning and materials from the Primary Languages Network Scheme of work supports our teachers who are non-specialists to provide high quality sequences of learning which progressively build pupils skills in speaking , listening and writing.  

Principles of excellent languages teaching at Mereside Church of England Primary Academy: 

• Children will think carefully about the phonics of the language being studied. 
• Children will focus on how to pronounce sounds. 
• Children will explore and experiment with sound patterns and make links and comparisons between languages, including languages used in the school community. 
• Children will think carefully about how the sounds are represented in writing. 
• Our lessons will follow a 'small step' approach - simple grammatical concepts will steadily increase in complexity. Children will manipulate simple language step by step. 
• When learning new words, children will focus on a wide range of commonly used words, which include verbs as well as lists of nouns linked to a topic. 
• Children will learn about the culture of the language that they are learning. 
• Children will focus on the building blocks of a language (phonics, grammar and vocabulary). 
• We recognise that language learning is greatly enhanced where it is linked to or embedded in the wider curriculum so that children and young people can enjoy exploring and using language in meaningful contexts and can relate their language learning to other work across the curriculum. 
• All of our units of work will focus on developing speaking, listening and writing 

How is MFL taught?  

Our children will learn the language through a mixture of listening and speaking activities, songs and rhymes, reading and writing words, phrases and sentences as well as learning about the culture of French speakers around the world.  

To promote an active learning of languages a range of teaching methods are implemented to ensure that the children are developing their linguistic skills through listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to be secondary ready. Activities can consist of actions, rhymes, stories, song, drama, grammar focus, video clips, air writing, sentence structure, dictionary work, book making and many more creative ways to extend, embed and combine language skills.  

Organisation:  

Children in KS2 learn French. In KS2, children are taught by school staff, for approximately 30-40 minutes per week. Moving forward, we will aim to include follow up activities when appropriate outside of the language lesson. In future, it is hoped that initial work can begin in KS1, to “pump prime” learners to study a modern foreign language in Year 3 and beyond.  

Curriculum Impact:  

Assessment:  

Currently assessment is informal across the four language skills and the progress made in these throughout KS2. This area will be further developed using PLN resources.  

Monitoring:  

The subject lead teacher for MFL discusses language learning with the staff who deliver it, as well as monitoring planning, pupil voice and learning walks, which include spoken and written evidence of progress in learning. The school is working toward effective progress across the four years of KS2. The lead teacher can access training in monitoring via the PLN VLE , consultation time, email discussion and at coordinator CPD. 

Useful Websites to Support Your Child’s Learning

The French Experiment - watch and listen to a story

The French Experiment - online French lessons

BBC Bitesize French