Modern Foreign Language

Intent

At St. John Fisher Catholic Primary School, we aim to offer a relevant, broad, vibrant and ambitious Modern Foreign Language curriculum which build knowledge, understanding and application progressively throughout the Primary phase. We believe that learning a second language provides pupils with the opportunity to explore relationships between language and identity and develops a deeper understanding of other cultures and the world they live in.

Our MFL curriculum is designed to enable pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts, laying down solid foundations for future language learning and also helping pupils improve their overall attainment in other subjects. Our ultimate aim is to inspire pupils to continue studying languages beyond Key Stage 2.

Implementation

We use Language Angles as the framework for our MFL planning and have collaboratively evaluated the curriculum as MFL leaders across the MAC to ensure that it fulfils the National Curriculum. To enable pupils to acquire, use and apply the language skills we:

  • Map out vocabulary coverage to build progressively each year
  • Start from a complete language introduction making no assumption about prior learning
  • Organise grammatical knowledge around age-appropriate topics and themes
  • Plan for different levels of challenge to enable all learners to reach their full potential
  • Teach children how to listen to and read longer pieces of texts
  • Provide regular opportunities to practice and apply speaking, listening, reading and written the skills taught in lessons
  • Use the ‘recycle, revise and consolidate’ approach to recapping prior learning
  • Supplement our direct curriculum offer with wider enrichment opportunities

Impact

As a result of our curriculum offer, pupils embrace the challenge of and opportunity to learn a new language. They become linguists and explorers of language, developing a strong understanding of the linguistic and grammatical complexities of French. Pupils become increasingly confident and proficient in speaking, listening, reading and writing French. As they move from the Early Learning units through to the Progressive units children engage with more text and content as evidence of this. Pupils will discuss and recall learning with confidence.