French

Intent

The aim of our French curriculum is to create confident and competent French speakers who demonstrate the following essential characteristics:

• Confident speaking and listening skills and the ability to recognise and respond to basic phrases.
• The use of good intonation and pronunciation for common phrases.
• Fluency in reading.
• Fluency and imagination in writing.
• A strong awareness of the culture of the countries where the language is spoken.
• A passion for languages and a commitment to the subject.
• The ability to use language creatively and spontaneously.
• Independence in their studies and the ability to draw upon a wide range of resources.

The following factors have been taken into consideration when designing the French curriculum.

• Ensuring our pupils embrace the wider cultural capital needed to succeed in modern life: discussing festivals, food customs and life in France and other French speaking countries.
• Our curriculum is reinforced by trips to France and Belgium, during which they are able to put into practise their language learning and develop a wider cultural appreciation of the language they are studying. This acts as a great motivation for language learning and develops historical and intercultural understanding.
• Children have the opportunity to support their work with a variety of resources such as speaking frames, songs, stories and rhymes which aim to speed up their recognition of useful vocabulary.
• The Primary French Project scheme supports teachers in developing their own subject knowledge so they can deliver lessons effectively by providing carefully designed lesson plans, PowerPoints with the audio attached and vocabulary mats. The audio clips ensure pupils are able to hear the language spoken by native French speakers enabling them to explore patterns and sounds in the language, and to link the spelling, sounds and meaning of words in the French language.
• The curriculum is designed to be cyclical and cumulative. This allows pupils to build and develop the core skills and grammar/content/vocabulary knowledge required to master the French language appropriately. 
• Lessons are planned to create cross-curricular links through subjects such as Geography, Maths, Music and Science and Literacy which not only encourages transferable skills but also strengthens their schema.

Our Curriculum

Our French curriculum follows the ‘Primary French Project’ developed by the Institut français du Royaume Uni (IFRU), in cooperation with the Association for Language Learning (ALL) and Network for Languages and covers the following areas:

- Speaking and Listening

- Reading and Writing

- Pronunciation and Spelling

- Grammar

- Dictionary skills

- Language Learning skills 

The French curriculum provides our teachers with clear and detailed lesson plans that are adapted to meet the needs of individual classes. PowerPoint presentations include all images and voice recordings necessary to model language and grammatical concepts to children and the activities used to apply the learning are made by a teacher who is a native French speaker.

A range of additional visual resources are also available to further develop children’s speaking and writing skills, and a range of songs, rhymes and stories are included in every unit to promote children’s listening, reading and pronunciation skills.

As specified in the National Curriculum, only KS2 classes are taught French lessons however younger pupils are encouraged to appreciate the value of learning another language throughout their time in school.

The materials are aligned to KS2 year groups as follows:

Niveau bleu - Year 3 (click here to see an overview)

Niveau blanc - Year 4 (click here to see an overview)

Niveau rouge – Year 5 (click here to see an overview)

Niveau tricolore – Year 6 (click here to see an overview)

Children are provided with knowledge webs for each unit, which include key vocabulary and grammar rules.

Please click here to see the French curriculum overviews and knowledge webs for each year group.

Assessment in French

The primary reason for assessment is to provide the pupil and the teacher with vital information which can then be used to improve future teaching and learning. Teachers will use a range of strategies to gain information about how well a child has understood a concept during the lesson including the use of effective questioning, collecting evidence from written work completed and the answers given in weekly POP quizzes.  End of unit POP quizzes provide an assessment tool which teachers can use to assess pupils’ progress over the course of each topic.

In addition, assessment papers for each unit are also available to track pupils’ progress in French. The materials have been designed to allow children to reach a level of attainment equivalent to level A1.1 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL) by the end of year 6. DELF Prim is the first level in the DELF /DALF series of certificates awarded by the French Ministry of Education for proficiency in French as a Foreign Language.

Parents are able to discuss the progress their children are making in French informally at any point during and are also invited to Parent Open Evenings once every term. End of year reports include a summative assessment of pupils’ progress across the year.

Enrichment opportunities

In addition to weekly lessons, we continuously seek enrichment experiences (such as workshops or class trips) that have impact on learning and deepen pupils’ understanding of key concepts. Examples of enrichment experiences  include trips to France and Belgium and an annual themed French day.

Useful websites for parents and carers