French Curriculum Intent at Carlton

Our French curriculum offer a carefully planned sequence of lessons, ensuring progressive coverage of the skills required by the national curriculum. Our chosen themes - Time Travelling, Let's Visit a French Town and This Is France - provide an introduction to the culture of French-speaking countries and communities. It aims to foster children’s curiosity and help deepen their understanding of the world. A linear curriculum has been chosen to allow opportunity for children to gradually build on their skills. Our French curriculum enables children to express their ideas and thoughts in French and provides opportunities to interact and communicate with others both in speech and in writing. At the heart of our French curriculum is the desire to expose children to authentic French, so the scheme we follow offers regular opportunities to listen to native speakers.

In Lower KS2, children acquire basic skills and understanding of French with a strong emphasis placed on developing their Speaking and Listening skills. These will be embedded and further developed in Upper KS2, alongside Reading and Writing, gradually progressing onto more complex language concepts and greater learner autonomy.

Through our French curriculum, we intend to inspire pupils to develop a love of languages and to expand their horizons to other countries, cultures and people. We aim to help children grow into curious, confident and reflective language learners and to provide them with a foundation that will equip them for further language studies.

Implementation

Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammar are built in.
 

Our lessons and resources help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills. A series of lessons are delivered, providing structure and context as well as offering an insight into the culture of French-speaking countries and communities. The introduction and revision of key vocabulary and grammatical structures is built into each lesson. This vocabulary we use is then displayed in classrooms, using 'word wheels', so that children have opportunities to repeat and revise their learning. 

Impact

Through the delivery of our French curriculum and use of interactive resources, the profile of languages across school will increase. The learning environment will be consistent with key French vocabulary displayed (using 'word wheels'), spoken and used by all learners. We want to ensure that French is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to embark on further language studies. Impact can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment such as success criteria grids and summative assessments aimed at targeting next steps in learning.