MFL

Meet The Team.

  Miss R. Roe                            Mrs R. Smallwood                  Mrs A. Williams                             

  Subject Leader                     Subject Link TA                     Subject Link Governor                                   

Efforcez-vous de ne pas être un succès, mais plutôt d’être de valeur.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value

Intent

At St Saviour we teach French in Key Stage 2 as we believe that the acquisition of a foreign language facilitates the learning of other foreign languages later in life. It is our intention to ensure that by the end of our children’s primary education, they have acquired an understanding of both spoken and written French that will allow them to transition smoothly to KS3, confidence to use French in all four modalities and know how important other languages can be in their future.

 Our key priorities:

•  To foster an interest in learning other languages.
•  To introduce children to languages in a way that is enjoyable and fun
•  To make children aware that language has structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another.
•  To help children develop their awareness of cultural differences in other countries.
•  To develop skills in all four modalities, with a focus on developing vocabulary in line with our reading key priorities.
•  To lay the foundations for future study.

Implementation

Teaching 

Our children are taught via a French Specialist Teacher who delivers their own French Curriculum (Linguastars Education). Topics are levelled meaning they can be adapted in the moment to reflect the children’s understanding and their varying needs. 

The curriculum follows the MARSEARS methodology (Conti) which is research backed and often used as a learning technique in secondary schools. During this sequence of learning, children will be taught French by modelling, awareness raising including phonics and grammar, receptive processing through listening and reading, structured production through speaking and writing before moving to autonomy and spontaneity relative to their age-related expectations. 

Children will access a knowledge organiser for each topic and will record evidence of their work in the French books. Each lesson is 30 minutes and is taught weekly with opportunities to follow up throughout the week. 

We aim for a balance of whole class, group and independent learning. Wherever possible, we encourage children to use and apply their learning in other areas of the curriculum. 

MFL curriculum planning

The planning for KS2 will target objectives taken from the National Curriculum 2014, incorporated with the scheme from Linguastars Education. The long term plan defines what we teach and ensures an appropriate balance and distribution of work across each term. 

MFL and inclusion

In all classes children have a wide range of abilities, and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children. At our school we will teach MFL to all KS2 children, whatever their ability and individual needs. MFL forms part of the school curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children. Through our MFL teaching we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make good progress by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. Where appropriate, work will be adapted to meet pupils’ needs and, if appropriate, extra support given. More able pupils will be given suitably challenging activities. 

Assessment

Assessment opportunities are created through continuous assessment and with attainment markers at each stage of the MARSEARS sequence. We use a tracker for each of the DfE standards to assess a child’s ability within a specific area. Teachers assess for each topic whether the children are Expected or not Expected in the subject. Progress and attainment is reported through end of year reports.  

Impact

From correct implementation of the French Curriculum, we expect to see: 

• High motivation for language learning.
• Clear progression in each year group in respect to all four modalities relative to the individual’s needs and starting points.
• A good awareness of the similarities and differences between French Culture and ours.
• Inclusion in languages, including celebration of home languages.

Key Documents

The file list below contains links to key subject documents.

Subject In Action Around School

Images of MFL in action around school.