Languages
“Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.”
Languages: Purpose of Study from the 2014 National Curriculum.
What are we trying to achieve?
Our Languages curriculum is part of our ‘Big Ideas’ of Civilisation and Identity and Diversity and enables our children 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.
Languages Themes
- Vocabulary
- Grammar
- Phonics
At Combs Ford Primary, we teach our children French.
Our French Curriculum Progression of Knowledge and Vocabulary 2022-2023 - Years 3 and 4, French Curriculum Progression of Knowledge and Vocabulary 2022-2023 - Years 5 and 6, French Curriculum Progression of Skills 2022-2023 - Years 3 and 4 and French Curriculum Progression of Skills 2022-2023 - Years 5 and 6 show how our children develop their knowledge and skills in French during their time with us. These progressions also lists the French vocabulary we want our children to focus on in their lessons. Our children will learn many more words than this, but these are the key words that will help them understand French and link the knowledge they have learned to other areas of the curriculum.
How do we organise learning?
To support the implementation of our French curriculum we are guided by Rigolo. Rigolo supports our teachers to develop their French expertise and plan and deliver engaging lessons. This ensures that our children progress by knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more.
Our French Curriculum Overview shows the units of work our children will experience during their time with us.
French is taught for 1 lesson every week in Years 3 to 6. This is shown in our timetables.
How well are we achieving our aims?
In French, children are assessed against the learning objective for each lesson. The skills needed for the key 4 areas of language learning – reading, writing, speaking and listening – are very different, and we understand that children may succeed in one area but struggle in another. Children are given the opportunity to use the skills of each of the four areas in every lesson, allowing teachers to assess their understanding of the new content being taught. Children are given feedback verbally or through live marking during lessons.
Updated on 12/02/23 by DP and KJD.
