Intent

We have high ambitions for all pupils at Langer to become skilled and knowledgeable linguists. We want our languages curriculum to prepare our children for their future as part of a global society. Learning a language in Key Stage (KS) Two is the start of a continuous language learning experience for our pupils that will take them up to at least the age of 14 years. We want them to learn specific knowledge in the French language as well as transferable skills for learning additional languages. 

We have chosen to teach French at Langer because the majority of our pupils go onto Felixstowe School and learn French there as part of the KS3 curriculum. We have also chosen French because it is the first language in over 50 countries, and spoken by over 270 million people. We selected a curriculum that includes subject knowledge videos to ensure that all staff who have not got experience of speaking French fluently or who have studied it to A Level standard are able to learn the skills they need to teach their lessons confidently. Our aim is that once our pupils have studied four years of French at Langer, that they will be able to enter KS3 with all the confidence and skills they need to make great progress through the modern foreign languages curriculum and hopefully continue their study of MfL into KS4 and beyond.

We value the opportunity for our pupils to learn a language as we know it provides them with further ways to learn about other cultures thus reducing the insularity that can be a feature of living in a coastal community such as ours. Our curriculum provides plenty of opportunities for pupils to learn in an exciting way that fosters their curiosity about words and languages.

We want our pupils to know and recall, in a range of different contexts, the language skills they learn at Langer Primary Academy.

Implementation

Our Languages Curriculum covers all national curriculum requirements by focusing on the key components of learning a new language:

• Speaking and listening,
• Reading,
• Writing,
• Grammar,
• Language learning strategies and
• Intercultural understanding.

It offers our pupils:

• the opportunity to speak French with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity;
• an appropriate balance between spoken and written content in their lessons;
• secure knowledge of French so that they can write at varying lengths for different purposes using ideas of their own choosing;
• clear understanding of the grammatical features of the French language and
• increasing understanding of the phonology of the French language.

Combining all these elements, using knowledge organisers and knowledge notes allows us to benefit from the reduction in cognitive load that is central to the curriculum across our school as pupils use similar systems in all written subjects. 

We use KAPOW French units to provide an outline for our Languages lessons. All KS2 classes in school are currently in their first academic year of studying this French language curriculum, regardless of the age of the children. The oldest pupils in school have also learned Spanish in earlier years at Langer but we have made the decision this year to move to all classes learning one language throughout the school in order to allow pupils to deepen their knowledge of a single language and provide them with greater readiness for KS3.