At Almondsbury, we are committed to providing KS2 pupils with a stimulating and enjoyable French curriculum, fostering pupils’ curiosity whilst deepening their understanding of the world. We lay the foundations as we start this journey much earlier, with EYFS and KS1 pupils experiencing the French language through talking and singing.

We believe that learning a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for pupils. They develop communication and literacy skills that lay the foundation for future learning of languages. Pupils develop linguistic competence, extend their knowledge of how language works and explore differences and similarities between a foreign language and English. Learning another language raises awareness of the multilingual and multicultural world around us. This awareness is then further enhanced in Year 6, when all of our pupils have the opportunity to experience the French culture through a residential visit to Paris. This allows them to try out the language they have learnt in a real-life context and gives them a much better understanding of the culture in action.

The learning of a foreign language provides a medium for cross-curricular links and for reinforcement of knowledge, skills and understanding developed in other subjects.

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.

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 structures
• 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 Languages – key stage 2
• understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English.

Our overview for French in KS2 has been developed to allow for the construction of a core bank of knowledge that is regularly revisited across the learning journey. This allows children to feel more confident when using the language, helping them to know and remember more. Our units are developed using a selection of high-quality resources and published schemes of work written by native French speakers and primary language specialists.