Red Oak Primary School, Lowestoft, Suffolk

Learning French at Red Oak Primary School.

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.

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• 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
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

At Red Oak Primary school, we teach French in discrete lessons of one hour a week (which can be broken up into smaller sessions across the week).

At Key Stage 1, there is no statutory requirement to teach a foreign language. However, the children in Years 1 and 2 learn basic French greetings, numbers, parts of the body, as well as some songs through the Rigolo scheme.

At Key Stage 2, teaching should focus on enabling pupils to make substantial progress in one language. The teaching should provide an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and should lay the foundations for further foreign language teaching at key stage 3. It should enable pupils to understand and communicate ideas, facts and feelings in speech and writing, focused on familiar and routine matters, using their knowledge of phonology, grammatical structures and vocabulary.

The focus of study in modern languages will be on practical communication.

Pupils should be taught to:

• listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding
• explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words
• engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help
• speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language
• develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases
• present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences
• read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
• appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language
• broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary
• write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly
• describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing

The Rigolo interactive programme of study we use enables progression across the required language-based skills which are introduced and consolidated across Key Stage 2.

Lower Key Stage 2  (years 3 and 4) use Rigolo 1 and Upper Key Stage 2  (years 3 and 4) use Rigolo 2, as well as a range of other resources to explore the customs and features of France, comparing them to their own lives.

Assessment

Children can be assessed using the Languages Ladder, which sets out objectives in listening, speaking, reading and writing and whether they have been met or not.

Each child has their own Language Learning Portfolio which allows them to assess their own progress.