Intent for FL at St Helen’s Primary School

At St Helen's, we work to develop the pupils’ 4 key skill areas in learning French. Listening, speaking, reading and writing will be taught and all necessary grammar will be covered in an age-appropriate way across KS2. This will enable pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts, laying down solid foundations for future language learning and also helping them improve their overall attainment in other subject areas. We strive for pupils to develop a genuine interest and positive curiosity about foreign languages. Learning another language will also enable pupils to explore relationships between different languages and identity, develop a deeper understanding of other cultures and the world around them with a better awareness of themselves, others and cultural differences. 

Please see the overview and linguistic progression documents.

In KS2, French is timetabled for 1 hour weekly for every class. 

At St Helen's, we use the European Framework for language learning to assess the pupils’ learning. Over the four years, pupils climb the first 4 steps on the Languages Ladder, progressing from word-level to sentence level and ultimately succeeding with short texts in familiar contexts.

Our scheme of work and resources are designed to enable pupils to progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics. Pupils are firstly encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through singing, rhymes, games and pair and group oral work. These practical activities are used to help memorise the pronunciation and meaning of the set key vocabulary. Key French phonemes and graphemes are introduced throughout the year and recapped as new vocabulary is introduced. Everyday instructions are also given in French to expose the pupils to as much French as possible in context. We then focus on the reading and writing skills, so that pupils are not reliant on English phonics to try and pronounce new words and can link the learned pronunciation to the written word. 

Hot, hotter and hottest levels of work are used to provide the correct level of challenge and scaffolding is used to provide the correct level of support. Pupils are all given a knowledge organiser at the start of each topic which all pupils can use for support, as required. Key information is pointed out on the knowledge organisers each lesson. A larger version of the knowledge organiser is also displayed on the classroom wall, so pupils can recap their learning during the week. 

Speaking and writing frames are used to support pupils to access the learning, to give key French vocabulary and example sentences, and pictures are used on these to also support EAL learners. 

At St Helen's, we want our pupils to feel that they are global citizens, by ensuring that children know about the world around them, develop an awareness of cultural differences in different countries, and how learning another language could open up doors in their futures.

The combination of these necessary skills enables our learners to use and apply their French learning in a variety of contexts and provides a foundation for their future language learning.