Our curriculum

At St. Gregory’s, French is our chosen modern language at KS2. French is a worldwide language and is spoken in over 70 different countries and continents, including many parts of Africa. As a Catholic country, France is also an important part of our religious heritage. Our curriculum is planned to provide an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and, from the outset in Year 3, aims to promote a love of language learning in general, which - in turn - will lay a positive foundation when learning any language at KS3.

At St. Gregory’s, we have selected and adapted the ‘Kapow Primary: French’ scheme of work which provides full coverage of national curriculum requirements. The scheme has been chosen due to its high-quality learning resources and content, which includes stories, videos, games and projects to work towards to help engage pupils in their learning as well as supporting teachers in delivering this important specialist subject.

Aims and intent

As stated in the National Curriculum, our curriculum intends to explore the foundation skills required when learning a language: speaking and listening, reading and writing (including grammatical knowledge and skill). We also believe language learning is an important opportunity to help develop intercultural understanding. Our aim is for pupils to develop resilience and a positive attitude to language learning through practical communication embedded within the curriculum through song, role play and other activities. 

Through learning French, our intent is to inspire a love of language learning and develop a positive attitude to language learning in general. Children should leave St. Gregory’s feeling confident in expressing their views in a range of French sentences, ready for further study – whatever the language – at KS3.  They should feel keen to learn more about a second language and the benefits that come from speaking it. 

We want the learners at St. Gregory’s to feel confident in achieving the aims set out in the National Curriculum, which are 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.

End points: Lower Key Stage 2

By the end of Lower KS2 (Year 3 and 4), pupils will have been introduced to the basic building blocks of the language – key nouns, adjectives and simple sentence stems - and by the end of Year 3 will be able to greet each other in French. Pupils will also be able to recognise some simple French vocabulary, for example when studying colours, transport and classroom items. By the end of this phase, pupils will have heard a range of different speech patterns and will be able to take part in the singing of some French songs and rhymes, even writing their own songs in French as part of the ‘Eurovision’ unit of study in Year 4! The focus of learning is on speaking and listening and children will be able to ask and respond to simple French questions with the support of their teacher. At the end of Year 4, pupils’ language progress is celebrated as each class takes responsibility for the planning and running of the ever-popular St.Gregory’s French café as part of our wider French Day celebrations in the summer term

End points: Upper Key Stage 2

By the end of Year 5 and 6, pupils will be equipped with the positive attitudes and willingness to continue learning a second language at KS3.

Pupil will further develop their speaking and listening skills but by the end of Upper KS2, will also be able to describe people, places, things and hobbies in writing with the support of their teacher. Pupils will also develop the skills needed when using a language dictionary which will help to prepare them for KS3.

Pupils will be able to recognise a much wider range of French vocabulary from a range of topic areas, including pets, sports and family, and will be able to form sentences using structures such as ‘j’aime’ (I like), ‘parce que’ (because), ‘dans ma maison’, (in my house), ‘il y a’ (there is) as well as  the conjunctions ‘et’ (and) and ‘mais’ (but). Year 6 pupils will have also had the experience of writing for a purpose in French when participating in our exciting French Pen-Pal letter exchange!

Enhancement

•St. Gregory’s Annual French Day – pupils celebrate French culture by attending and role playing a French café, sampling traditional French food and exploring the culture of France through art and music

•Pupils have access to ‘Padlet’, an online scrapbook of learning, to showcase their work in the classroom as well as encouraging pupils to try out their language skills at home

•Our curriculum is well resourced with dictionaries and French story books to enhance learning and aid independence