At St Leonard’s Lower School, we are growing and learning together with God’s Love. Our Christian values are embedded in all that we do.

We recognise that every child is a unique individual within God’s creation and our aim is to provide the rich soil (the learning environment and curriculum) that enables our children to develop deep roots, flourish and grow in their own unique way.

We aim to provide a relevant, creative, exciting and challenging curriculum to support all learners to achieve their full potential and to be prepared for their future.

We will ensure an inclusive education for all, enabling each child to learn and develop the skills and knowledge they need to thrive.

Intent

At St Leonard's Lower School we believe that the learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills, including the key skills of speaking and listening, and extends their knowledge of how language works. Learning another language gives children a new perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others.
We provide learning opportunities for all children in Key Stage 2. The focus language taught in our school is French.

We aim to provide children with opportunities to speak in their family language, to share their knowledge of the customs, heritage and culture of their family language, in EYFS and throughout the school.
We believe that it is vital for all children to develop their understanding and knowledge of the wider world and to become more aware of the diversity of cultures that makes up our modern society.

We aim to:

• deliver high quality MFL teaching, so that our pupils develop enjoyment, confidence and accuracy of pronunciation in speaking French;
• foster an interest in language learning by introducing children to other languages in a way that is

         enjoyable and accessible to all pupils;

• stimulate and encourage children’s curiosity about language and creativity in experimenting with it;
• support oracy and literacy, and in particular develop speaking and listening skills;
• help children develop their awareness of cultural similarities and differences;
• begin to prepare pupils for developing skills at a higher level in a MFL, to prepare them for a future in the workplace, at home or in other countries.

Implementation

All KS2 pupils have a weekly French lesson delivered by the class teachers. 

We use the Early Start French scheme of work to plan our teaching and learning. The emphasis is on laying a solid foundation for further language learning, so that children can start to understand when listening and reading simple language, and work from the outset to be able to speak and write too when the context is familiar. We start with the theme of “You and me”, enabling pupils to use the foreign language to exchange personal information; to talk about themselves and find out about other people. The course introduces new vocabulary and structures at a deliberately slow, steady pace. It offers plenty of lively and interesting practice through varied activities such as song, listening and speaking and reading and writing before progressing to the next step. This way children gain confidence through success at each stage. “Early Start French” works in a spiral fashion, often revisiting previously learnt language, and reusing it in another context.

Class teachers further embed use of French and other languages in ad hoc opportunities, eg. during registration, lining up, classroom commands, in PE lessons, greetings, simple phrases eg. please and thank you, etc. 

In addition to our KS2 core curriculum learning we offer French and Spanish clubs at school. These are delivered by specialist language tutors from La Jolie Ronde. You can find out more here:

La Jolie Ronde - French & Spanish classes, clubs & resources

Progression of Knowledge KS2 Core Curriculum Learning: 

Impact

Teachers make formative assessments of pupil progress within lessons against lesson outcomes and success criteria. Pupils are able to self assess through 'can do' statements. 

Monitoring of MFL teaching takes various forms, for example through pupil voice, learning walks and work scrutiny.

The intended outcomes are to: