Intent

Friday Bridge Primary school’s aim is that all pupils will develop a genuine interest and positive curiosity about foreign languages, predominantly French. Learning a second language will offer pupils the opportunity to explore relationships between language and identity, develop a deeper understanding of other cultures and the world around them with a better awareness of self, key individuals and cultural differences. The intention is that pupils will feel able and encouraged to continue studying languages beyond key stage 2 and ultimately be working towards becoming life-long language learners.

Furthermore, Friday Bridge Primary School intends to use the Early Start programme and resources to ensure we offer a relevant, broad and vibrant foreign languages curriculum that will inspire and excite our pupils using a wide variety of topics and themes.

The four key language learning skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) will be taught and all necessary grammar will be covered in an age-appropriate way across key stage 2. This will enable pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts, laying down solid foundations for future language learning.

In key stage one, teachers are encouraged to teach ‘incidental Spanish/French’. Towards the end of year 2, teacher will be expected to teach basics Spanish & French skills in a standalone lessons. The intent of this is to ensure an efficient transition between key stage one and key stage two.

Implementation

All classes will have access to a very high-quality foreign languages curriculum using the Early Start scheme of work and resources. This will progressively develop pupil skills in foreign languages through regularly taught and well-planned weekly lessons. Though teachers are encouraged to use the programme’s planning and differentiated resources, it is important to assess these and adapt them where necessary. Therefore, lessons offering appropriate levels of challenge and differentiation will be taught at all times to ensure pupils learn effectively, continuously building their knowledge of and enthusiasm for Spanish and French. Units, where possible and appropriate, will be linked to class topics and cross curricular themes. Children will build on previous knowledge gradually as their lessons continue to recycle, revise and consolidate previously learnt language whilst building on all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing).

In key stage one, teachers will be encouraged to implement lessons, where basic Spanish/French skills are taught, into their curriculum towards the end of the Summer term.

Impact

As each year passes, units increase in level of challenge, linguistic and grammatical complexity as pupils move from Early Learning units through Intermediate units and into the most challenging Progressive units. Early Learning units (studied in year 3) will start at basic noun and article level and will teach pupils how to formulate short phrases. By the time pupils reach Progressive units (year 5 and 6) they will be exposed to longer texts and will be encouraged to formulate their own, more personalised responses based on a much wider bank of vocabulary, linguistic structures and grammatical knowledge. They will be able to create longer pieces of spoken and written language and are encouraged to use a variety of conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, opinions and justifications.