French

Intent

At St Cath’s we value the diversity of our school community. We cherish and celebrate the fact that many languages are spoken by our staff, children and other stakeholders in our school community and believe in the importance of learning other languages. The learning and love of languages are paramount in fostering a strong community that wants to understand and cherish one another. We believe that this allows children to learn the skill of learning another language as well as the softer skills related to making links in their brains to common pieces of vocabulary and of similar conventions.

We also firmly believe in the value of perseverance and appreciation for different cultures that learning a language unlocks for our pupils. Doors are closed when pupils understanding of different languages is limited and we believe to fully engage with God’s wonderful world, we must be able to understand and appreciate different languages. Learning a language also links to our commitment to teaching British Values. Particularly, it teaches a deeper mutual respect for others that speak the French language in our school community and beyond.

We also commit to raising the cultural capital of all students at St Cath’s. Learning another language allows students to access a greater amount of reading, music, and other forms of the arts as they progress through schools and unlocks potential that they will use when they learn languages at secondary school. A firm respect for different languages and the value of the language-learning process will allow pupils to have a strong commitment to learning a language in school and post-education. This will allow them to explore career options that they otherwise would not have access to with limited foreign language skills.

Implementation

KS2 teachers are guided by the long-term planning on Kapow. This provides teachers with a clear progression and idea of what the children should be learning and when. The aspects of learning are listening, reading, writing and being a language detective (looking for patterns in languages that they perhaps see in their native language.

Impact

Assessment in MFL is done via Kapow’s end-of-unit quizzes and consultation with the knowledge map. Teachers are also empowered to use their own in-class assessment to gauge a pupil’s understanding of the content they are covering and whether their engagement indicates that the pupil is working towards, at, above or below the standard for that year group.

To support our judgements, teachers at St Cath’s use:

Kapow quizzes

Knowledge organisers

Assessment for learning in class

Pupil Voice

Pupil Voice

Summary of Pupil Voice June 2023

Children at St Cath’s enjoy learning a language. They realise that it is important as it allows them to communicate with people from different countries and understand different cultures on a deeper level. Pupils were able to express how they learn and what they love about French, as well as a desire to go further in their learning of different languages. For example, a number of pupils expressed a desire to learn Gaelic and Chinese.

Gallery of Learning