Intent

Here at Collis, we believe that learning a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils: it is important for encouraging a natural curiosity about and understanding of the world.  Learning a foreign language gives children a new perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others. Additionally, learning a language allows children to experience something new and unfamiliar and encourages children to go outside of their comfort zone and take risks aligning with our Collis values of ‘courage’ and ‘challenge’. Finally, learning a language helps pupils to develop practical communication skills as well as extending their knowledge of how a language work and lays a firm foundation for language learning throughout their life.

We aim to give children a sound starting point for French which they can take forward to secondary school.

By the end of KS2 children will be able to do the following things:

• Engage in conversations about themselves using correct pronunciation. This could be through asking and answering questions, expressing their likes and dislikes and/or describing people, places or things.
• Be able to read simple texts that are written about subjects they are familiar with, using a French/English dictionary to look up unknown words.
• Be able to write sentences and paragraphs of increasing length and adapt known grammatical structures to construct new sentences.
• Understand the relationship between key French letters/groups of letters and their pronunciations.
• Understand key grammatical rules used to structure sentences and how they are the same/different from the English language. (learning the language of a language eg: infinitives/tenses)
• Understand the key cultures and traditions of French speaking countries and how they are different/similar to each other and England.
• Know and appreciate some songs and stories in the French language.

Implementation

Each topic taught is part of a carefully planned and sequenced curriculum, which consolidates and builds on previous learning. We have focussed on topics that enable children to talk about themselves and their interests, so that the subject matter is familiar and also extremely relevant to them.

Learning is built up sequentially, so that each year children can say an increasing amount of information about themselves and ask questions to others of a similar nature. For example, in year 3 children learn greetings, their family members, pets as well as colours and numbers. In year 4, children start learning how to describe themselves and others and build on numbers by linking it to birthdays, months of the year and telling the time. In year 5, children are introduced to phrases to enable them to describe the food or school subjects that they like/dislike. In year 6, children start to be able to describe how they like to spend their free time and what there is to do in their local area. We use Early Start Online to support our French teaching https://www.earlystartonline.com/es-french.html.

We have also introduced the teaching of French phonics to aid children’s pronunciation and use ‘Physical French Phonics’ which is a sound, action and spelling system to help children learn and remember the sounds of the written form of French. This provides a code to help all learners unlock the French language.

In addition, specific grammatical constructs are taught in different year groups including masculine and feminine, order of words in sentences, verb conjugation and manipulating tenses. The grammatical construct taught is carefully considered to help them with the phrase/sentence structure for the topic that they are learning.

We carefully consider the cohort of children and their previous experiences, using AFL to amend our sequence of lessons if necessary. For example, the impact of Covid has meant that in previous years we have not taught the future tense to our year 6 children, but instead have consolidated using the past tense. The judgement on introducing the future tense will be assessed depending on the confidence and abilities of the children in the particular year.

Wherever possible cross-curriculum links are built into the curriculum. For example in year 4 both the English and French unit of work focuses on the story of Cinderella (Cendrillon). Opportunities for using French are utilised across the curriculum. For example, giving instructions in French in PE lessons, when doing the register and the date is always written on the board in both English and French.  This acts to reinforce the vocabulary and structures they have learned and give learning a real purpose. ICT is used where appropriate to enhance teaching and learning.

We always make every effort to ensure that the teaching of a language is inclusive and find that learning a language creates a level playing field for EAL children and children who may find other subjects challenging. Children with EAL often show great confidence in French as they are used to operating in a language that they are not familiar with. Support resources are always on hand. For example, children use word mats and sentence builders to help them with independent activities. Additionally, vocabulary is constantly re-visited each lesson.

If you were to walk into a French lesson at Collis, you will see some of the following things:

• Re-visiting of key vocabulary, knowledge and skills from previous topics
• New vocabulary taught through games with a focus on pronunciation using physical French Phonics
• Clear links made between the spelling of letters/groups of letters and their pronunciation
• Children learning about key grammatical rules in the French language, comparisons made with English grammatical rules and links made from previous learning
• Children learning about the culture and traditions of French speaking countries
• Children learning songs and stories in French
• Opportunities for teachers to assess children’s French knowledge by using low stakes activities
• A mixture of speaking, listening, reading and writing.  

An example of the progressions of skills for listening from year 3 to year 6.

Topics covered in each year group.

Impact

Work Samples

Year 3

Year 4

Children in year 5 taking part in a scavenger hunt:   

Year 6

Pupil Voice

'It's good to know another language. I really liked doing the scavenger hunt and the starter activities'. Alison, Year 6

'It is really important to be bi-lingual, and French is really relevant. I love doing the [Christmas and numbers] booklets with a variety of activities in them.' Judith, Year 6

'I like to learn French because it might be useful to know how to speak another language if you travel around the world. If you want to learn new words, you might like to write them out.' Emmy, Year 4

'I like learning French because I like learning new languages because you might need them in your job. I like when we have to match the numbers and their words' Josh, Year 4'I like speaking French, but it can be a bit tricky. I like being able to talk about my family and pets' Hope, Year 4

'I love it! We should be able to understand people who speak other languages. I like learning about numbers because I can impress other people by counting up to 30. I like singing the French songs.'' Noah, Year 4

'When I’m stuck the phonics page helps me.'  Year 3

'It’s important to learn a language because you understand things better and appreciate other cultures.' Year 4

Successes in 2023-24

• Teaching of phonics increasingly embedded within the curriculum using Physical French Phonics resource
• French afternoon to celebrate French language and culture
• Gallery lesson to support staff
• Creation of Knowledge Maps for each topic
• French labelling for locations around the school

Priorities for 2024–2025

• Introduction of French songs in KS1
• Further staff training
• Creation of French ‘tour’ of the school