“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.” Department for Education. 2013

Learning a second language offers the chance to explore relationships between language and identity, develop a deeper understanding of another culture and improve overall attainment.

Intent of our Modern Foreign Languages Education Provision

At Whitehouse Community Primary School, where many children already speak two languages, we believe that learning any additional language is full of rich opportunities. The MFL curriculum at Whitehouse Community Primary School is designed to improve our pupils’ competence in understanding and speaking French but equally it is focussed on developing our pupils as learners, giving them a wider cultural awareness and broadening their learning experiences. We believe this approach will develop our pupils’ knowledge and skills, enable them to access the wider curriculum and prepare them to be a global citizen, now and in their future.  Our intent is for our children to develop a practical knowledge of French, enabling them to express their thoughts and ideas through interactive lessons.  We will provide many chances for pupils to communicate for practical purposes and we aim to give our pupils opportunities to gain knowledge about the language as well as the culture and traditions of France. 

Implementation of our Modern Foreign Languages Education Provision

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning of French at Whitehouse Community Primary School we implement a curriculum that shows a progression of skills throughout Key Stage 2.  In our lessons, our main focus is on practical communication.  We follow a spiral curriculum and our main themes are numbers, greetings, colours, food, the calendar, weather, clothing, places, hobbies and the school day.

In order to have an inclusive and accessible learning environment we support children with a range of different needs and abilities through differentiated lessons and our three step learning objectives. This gives every child the opportunity to succeed and develop a responsible and reflective attitude towards their learning.  Lessons are delivered through a broad range of interactive games, songs and activities that stimulate and encourage children of all abilities to explore and participate with a focus on practical application for speaking in a range of real life scenarios that enable pupils to demonstrate practical application of their language skills.  As confidence and skill grows, children record their work through pictures, captions and sentences.  Additionally, we offer ‘French for the Family’ in Year 4, which is where parents are invited in to school to spend time with their children, eat a little French food and experience what a French lesson is like.

Impact of our Modern Foreign Languages Education Provision

Our aim is to ensure children recognise the relevance of learning a second language for their future and to encourage our pupils to continue to pursue an enjoyment of foreign language learning as they move into a secondary school setting. 

• Pupils learn to recognise French vocabulary and are able to write in French which gives them a positive starting point to learning languages in the future.
• Pupils gain a better understanding of other cultures and the wider world, ready to be explored, outside of their local community. This helps pupil to broaden their horizons and be open to opportunities to travel.
• All pupils can take part in MFL lessons, including EAL pupils, from a level starting point. Oral lessons allow all pupils to engage and achieve success, which increase motivation and confidence.
• Learning another language helps pupils understand and have empathy for those pupils in our school who are learning English as an additional language, supporting our inclusive and supportive school atmosphere.
• Teacher assessment are used to track progress and attainment. Assessments are recorded and monitored on classroom monitor and analysed through pupil-progress meetings termly.