Intent
At Parkway Primary School we believe that the learning of a language provides an invaluable cultural, educational and social experience for our pupils. It enables them to develop essential communication skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening in another language. Learning French will lay the foundations for the children to develop their knowledge of how languages work which will support them when learning other languages in the future.
We believe that by learning another language, children develop a broader perspective on the world which encourages them to better understand their own culture and other cultures of the world.
Our main emphasis when teaching MFL, is on building confidence so that children are not afraid to have a go at communicating in French. It is important that children progress through the skills required by the National Curriculum and not just learn basic vocabulary. It is an expectation that children should be reading and writing simple sentences by the end of Year 6.
Implementation for MFL
Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages through termly lessons. Children 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 Languages/French club where children develop an appreciation for French culture through the telling of stories and singing of French songs.
Our school follows the Language Angles scheme of work for French which is adapted to meet the needs of our children. As all children learn at different speeds and have different learning styles, we try to make French lessons as active as possible with carefully chosen songs and activities.
Impact of MFL
Our French curriculum will ensure that all pupils in KS2 develop the key skills as set out in the national curriculum, as well as develop a love of languages and an appreciation of other cultures.
The national curriculum aims for MFL are that all pupils:
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.