French

Intent

Roade Primary school uses the Kapow Primary scheme of work to teach French.

Using this scheme we aim to:

• Provide a structured, cyclical curriculum to enable French to be taught effectively across Key Stage 2.
• Enable pupils to feel confident in their French learning.
• Encourage pupils to have a go at speaking French and not worry about being wrong.
• Provide all teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to deliver fun, creative and effective French lessons.
• Install a love of language learning and the ambition to become fluent French speakers in the future, and even the ambition to apply their skills to the learning of other languages.
• Develop pupils’ understanding and awareness of other cultures in our diverse society.
• Develop pupil’s understanding of French vocabulary and grammar over time and relate this to English. This allows pupils to build sentences with creativity
• Provide pupils with the skills and knowledge to be able to read and write basic sentences in French.

Implementation

The Kapow French scheme of work is designed with the teachers in mind, not just the children, so that they have the skills and understanding to teach the pupils effectively and with confidence.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for teachers to be able to deliver an effective languages curriculum. The Kapow French scheme contains multiple teacher videos which include information about the skills within each lesson, together with sound files to aid pronunciation for teachers and pupils alike.

This is a spiral curriculum, where the key skills and vocabulary are revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise skills and build on previous learning. Cross curricular links are included so that the pupils can make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of learning.

There is a clear progression of skills and knowledge in and between each year group to ensure that the attainment targets are met by the end of Key Stage 2 and that the children have every opportunity to build on and extend their learning.

Pupils are given opportunities to communicate in practical situations, relating to familiar subjects and everyday routines. There are numerous opportunities for pupils to communicate in both spoken and written French, although the focus in Year 3 is on oral work.

French is taught in once a week in each Key Stage 2 class but there is the flexibility to divide the lesson into smaller chunks, or to have a French day or half day.

All pupils can access the lessons, and teachers are given guidance on differentiation so all children can learn and make progress, irrespective of their ability.

Frequent exposure to the French language is vital if children are to retain their French knowledge and build on it. Kapow provides ‘During the Week’ sections which give information to teachers and regular reminders of vocabulary and pronunciation.

Impact

When pupils leave at the end of Year 6, we aim for them to have gained all the skills and confidence needed to transition smoothly to Year 7 at secondary school, where they can build on the strong foundations provided by the French teaching here at Roade Primary and hopefully be motivated to study French at Key Stage 3.

The pupils will continue to use their language detective skills as they recognise learnt vocabulary, predict the meaning of unknown words and consider word order to anticipate the meaning of words in a sentence.

The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. These objectives will be selected by the class teacher when planning lessons on their Maestro timetables and assessed after each lesson.

It is expected the that impact of following the Kapow Primary French scheme of work is that children will:

• Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g., ordering in a cafe, following directions) and express an opinion.
• Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases, and short texts.
• Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation.
• Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding appropriately.
• Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning.
• Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have learnt.
• Have developed an awareness of cognates and near-cognates and be able to use them to tackle unfamiliar words in French, English, and other languages.
• Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics.
• Meet the end of Key Stage 2 expectations outlined in the national curriculum.

French Threads

We have 6 threads that run through our French curriculum, they are

• Speaking and pronunciation
• Listening
• Reading and writing
• Grammar
• Intercultural understanding
• Language detective skills

These threads are inter-woven into the learning within the units of work and allow the coverage of the National curriculum attainment targets.

French is studied in years 3 to 6, once a week as part of timetabled lessons.

French Road

Our 'French Road', detailing the topics studied through the primary curriculum here at Roade:

If you have any questions about our French curriculum, please contact your child's teacher or our French subject lead.