INTENT – to what do we aspire for our children?
Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality language 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.
Source: National Curriculum 2013
At St Werburgh’s Primary, we work together towards excellence, underpinned by the following values:
Kindness
– Celebrate languages from all cultures from all around the world
– Develop respect and positive attitudes towards others.
– Be collaborative by working together, sharing and using each other’s ideas, being respectful, responsible and safe
Curiosity
– Develop curiosity of other cultures and languages
– Develop curiosity of French communities and people
– Engaging enrichment opportunities
– Stimulate and encourage children’s curiosity about language by experimenting with it Commitment
– approaching learning a MFL with resilience and an open-mind
– to developing and articulating a secure foundational subject knowledge
– Make language learning enjoyable and accessible to all pupils
Commitment
– approaching learning a MFL with resilience and an open-mind
– to developing and articulating a secure foundational subject knowledge
– Make language learning enjoyable and accessible to all pupils
– Provide opportunities to develop speaking and listening and oracy skills
– develop a sense of global citizenship
MfL pillars underpin the successful learning of a different language:
● The system of the sounds of a language and how these are represented in written words
● Vocabulary
● Grammar, including inflectional and/or derivational features and syntax Aims of the MFL Curriculum
● understand and respond to spoken and written language
● speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
● can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt (to be developed)
● discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied
Vocabulary and Oracy
We recognise the vital role that oracy plays in the lives and life chances of our children, therefore we plan explicit opportunities to develop their oracy skills as well as opportunities to learn through oracy across the curriculum. Effective MFL teaching and learning is underpinned by Speaking and Listening skills.
Long term sequence
Our curriculum follows the principles of instruction, is guided by understanding how the memory works and cognitive load theory.
Phonic progression:
Most of the units have a suggested phonic focus, detailing the individual sounds (phonemes) and phonological skills practised in that unit. There is progression over the units. In the early units the emphasis is on introducing individual phonemes, getting children to practise hearing these sounds, and comparing each with the letter or combination of letters that represents . There are also suggested activities where children discriminate between similar sounds and practise segmenting words into individual phonemes, i.e. trying to hear each individual sound within a word.
IMPLEMENTATION – how will we deliver the curriculum?
Linking Curriculum and pedagogy
MFL is taught weekly for 30 minutes in KS2. It is not a requirement for KS1 or EYFS, however children are introduced to languages when exploring other areas of the curriculum.
● Lesson structure follows the CUSP model – Connect, Explain, Example, Attempt, Apply and Challenge.
● CUSP Curriculum
● Each lesson includes a phonics section.
● The CUSP curriculum overview (see above) provides a clear progression for the development of speaking and listening and vocabulary acquisition.
● We build children’s confidence through praise for any contribution they make in the foreign language, however tentative
Lesson design
Each lesson follows the model above.
– CONNECT to prior knowledge
– EXPLAIN new content, element of working scientifically and scientific vocabulary
– give and EXAMPLE of new learning
– Pupils ATTEMPT new learning with scaffolding
– APPLY new learning independently
– Pupils are CHALLENGED to integrate learning with prior knowledge
In every science lesson you would expect to see;
– Vocabulary explicitly taught and used by the pupils
– Knowledge notes and organisers used to scaffold the learning
– What success looks like; made clear
Curriculum enrichment
● French day
● KS1 learning a French Song
SEND
The curriculum at St Werburgh’s Primary is inherently designed to support pupils with SEND through universal quality first teaching. This includes:
– High expectations and aspirations for all learners
– A carefully structured and sequenced curriculum, specifically designed around how pupils learn
– Pre-planned and focused direct vocabulary instruction
– Modelling and demonstration
– Chunked instructions which are supported by visuals and gestures
– The use of manipulatives and multi-sensory approaches to enhance the curriculum
– Review, recall, repetition and retrieval
– Frequent formative assessment as teachers check for understanding
– Accurate and regular feedback
However, we recognise some pupils need provision ‘additional to’ quality first teaching in order to reach their potential as scientists. This includes:
– Carefully considered scaffolding
– Pre and post-teaching
– Pre-planned management of cognitive load
– Explicit instruction and modelling
– Structured challenge, without ceilings
– Alternative ways of recording
– Additional targeted adult support
In some instances, specialist adaptations are made to support the specific barriers of individual pupils.
IMPACT – how do we know our curriculum is effective?
Pupil Voice:
– use French vocabulary
– Able to meet and greet in French
– explain how learning builds on previous knowledge
– articulate their progress regardless of starting point
High quality outcomes:
Book looks will show:
– demonstrate pride and effort
– demonstrate a clear sequence of learning
– vocabulary clearly seen
Assessment
CUSP is designed and built on the premise that ‘learning equals a persistent change in the long term memory.’ Therefore, the assessment structures are designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum sometime after it has been taught.
Summative Assessment
The curriculum is a progression model. Teachers will know whether students are making progress if they are learning more of the curriculum.
The CUSP curriculum is designed to ensure sequencing of core knowledge, vocabulary, substantive concepts and disciplinary knowledge. They will know more, and remember more with the taught curriculum content. Essentially they will be able to do more with this knowledge in carefully designed learning tasks.
This will be assessed using the Book Study approach- talking with pupils and looking at their books systematically to reveal:
● Content and knowledge
● Vocabulary
● How the pedagogy and taught curriculum helps/hinders their learning
Formative Assessment
Pupils will be assessed formatively as each lesson progresses. Pupils will be given tasks from which the teachers will draw conclusions. Adaptations will then be made as a result of that evidence.
Strategies that might be used are:
● Making explicit the learning intention and success criteria
● Eliciting evidence of pupils’ prior knowledge
● Feeding back at the point of learning
● Inclusive questioning i.e. cold call, mini whiteboards
● Retrieval practice i.e. cumulative quizzing