MFL

MFL at Elton Primary School

French

Intent

At Elton Primary School, we aim to give the children in our care as wide a range of opportunities and experiences as possible. We acknowledge the influence that Europe has on our lives and as the UK is becoming an increasingly multicultural society, we have a duty to provide our children with an understanding of other cultures and languages.

Learning a language enriches the curriculum, providing excitement, enjoyment and challenge for children and teachers, helping to create enthusiastic learners and to develop positive attitudes to language learning throughout life. The natural links between languages and other areas of the curriculum can enhance the overall teaching and learning experience. The skills, knowledge and understanding gained make a major contribution to the development of children’s oracy and literacy and to their understanding of their own culture and those of others. Language also lies at the heart of ideas about individual identity and community, and learning another language can do a great deal to shape children’s ideas in this critical area as well as giving them a new perspective on their own language.

At Elton Primary School, we believe that many children really enjoy learning to speak another language. Secondly, we also believe that the earlier a child is exposed to a foreign language, the faster the language in question is acquired. We also believe that it is a good idea to introduce a new language to children when they are at primary school, as they tend to be less self-conscious about speaking aloud at this stage of their development. It is widely believed that the early acquisition of a foreign language facilitates the learning of other foreign languages later in life.

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

Our school uses Primary Languages network (PLN) for our planning and delivery of French. The language is taught in our ks2 classes and this curriculum matches the national curriculum.

We believe in an active and engaging way to language learning. We focus on key language learning skills in lessons which results in students being more ready to access MFL in higher education and beyond. We want all kids to love their languages by the end of primary.

Implementation

All teachers are confident in their skills to teach high quality French lessons. They use videos and professional development units built within the MFL curriculum to support their teaching.

Each year group uses a knowledge organiser regularly in class to help highlight key learning points, to aid knowledge retention and to use as a guideline for making end of unit assessment judgements.

Each class has identified key vocab that is included on KOs and listed on the whole school vocab documents. However given the disruption this year, the implementation of this is still at an early stage.