Our Lady of the Rosary

French

At Our Lady of the Rosary School, our vision is to transform the lives of our pupils within a Catholic environment by nurturing the wellbeing of each child, promoting the highest academic achievement and instilling a lifelong love of learning. We aim to fulfil our school strap line ‘Faith, Love, Learning’ by igniting a thirst for knowledge and a desire to achieve through an engaging and creative curriculum that promotes the highest academic achievements and prepares our pupils to be successful in their adult life.

Our Vision….

At Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School, we aim to develop a strong interest for learning different languages and cultures with French as our language. We aim to develop the pupil’s interest by helping them learn French through enjoyable and stimulating ways. Pupils will be taught to understand and embrace different cultures and we aim for them to develop a natural curiosity and confidence to explore other countries, cultures and languages.

Intent

At Our lady of the Rosary School, we believe that the learning of a language provides an invaluable cultural, educational and social experience for our pupils.

French enables them to develop essential communication skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening in another language. Learning French will lay the foundations for the pupils to develop their knowledge of how languages work which will support them when learning other languages in the future.

The four strands are listening, speaking, reading and writing (grammar). Each have equal weighting of importance and are taught in each unit. Phonics is a standalone strand that needs to be taught at the start of the year and progresses year on year.

Our main emphasis when teaching Modern Foreign Languages, is on building confidence so that pupils are not afraid to communicate in French. It is important that pupils progress through the skills required by the National Curriculum and not just learn basic vocabulary. It is an expectation that pupils should be reading and writing simple sentences by the end of Year 6. We also aim to build on pupils’ ‘cultural capital’ so that they can develop a knowledge and understanding of the rich diversity between cultures in our community, the UK and wider world.

We believe that by learning another language, pupils develop a broader perspective on the world which encourages them to better understand their own culture and other cultures of the world.

As a school, we share and celebrate Modern Foreign Languages with pride and express that every child is an Our Lady of the Rosary Linguist.

Key Stage 2

The National Curriculum objectives set out for MFL are 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 
  • can 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 the language studied.

Implementation

Our Modern Foreign Language curriculum is designed to progressively develop pupil’s skills in languages through termly lessons. Pupils develop their love of language learning and progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around units within their themes. We also have an after school French club where pupils develop an appreciation for French culture through the telling of stories and singing of French songs.

French is taught through the use of Language Angels. It is a comprehensive language-learning programme that aligns with the National Curriculum Key Stage 2 Programme of Study; it is a language-led, practise-based curriculum, in which the four strands underpin the development of confident communication, cultural understanding and the creative use of language.

 In line with the National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Language, pupils are taught to: 

  • listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by speaking and responding
  • explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words
  • engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help
  • speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures
  • develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases
  • present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences
  • read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
  • appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language
  • broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material
  • write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly
  • describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing
  • Pupils are regularly given the opportunity for self or peer assessment through discussions throughout lessons.

Impact

Our French curriculum will ensure that all pupils in Key Stage 2 develop the key skills as set out in the National Curriculum. They will develop a love of languages, become confident and fluent speakers of French and an appreciation of other cultures. Pupils will enrich their language learning by developing an understanding of the French culture and be able to respond to spoken and written language in French.

Pupils will know that be a language has a structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another. When transferring to Key Stage 3, our pupils will be able to effectively and successfully be well prepared to continue and develop their language skills. Pupils will know that the world is a small place and that language skills and will assist them when can be very useful for travelling and conducting business across a global market.

We have high aspirations for all pupils, which will see them through to further study, work and be successful in their adult life.

French overview 2024