At St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, French will be fully inclusive of every child.  It is our intent to provide all of our children with a high-quality education in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), which develops their love of learning about other languages and cultures.  It is our intention to ensure that by the end of our children’s primary education, they have acquired an understanding of both spoken and written French, confidence to speak in French with others and know how important other languages can be in their future.  We aim to foster children’s curiosity and help deepen their understanding of the world.  It is our 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.

Our MFL curriculum is designed to develop not only our children’s language skills, but also their love of learning a language.  It progressively develops language skills, through regularly taught lessons.  This allows the children to acquire new language then use and apply it in a range of different scenarios and topics.  Children are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through a multi-sensory approach such as conversational work, singing activities, repetition and games. As their confidence and skill grows, children record their work through pictures, captions and sentences.  In Upper Key Stage Two, children begin to develop their understanding of grammar in another language.

Our MFL curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression.  We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work.  Assessment criteria has been developed, in line with national curriculum aims, to enable teachers to assess the progress of children in their language learning as they move through Key Stage 2, ensuring that children are supported and challenged as appropriate.  

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Observing children speaking and listening in another language.
• Marking of written work.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum to parents.