Modern Foreign Languages

Intent

At Sudbourne we are linguists!

At Sudbourne, we provide all Phase 2 - 3 children (KS2) with a quality education of Modern Foreign Languages. We aim to foster a love of learning about other languages and cultures, whilst providing a wider understanding of the world.

We also aim to build on children’s ‘cultural capital’ so that children develop a knowledge and understanding of the rich diversity between cultures in our community, the UK and wider world.

Our French curriculum has been purposefully built around the principles of evidence-led practice. This is to ensure that there is a focus on high-quality development of children as linguists. It is our intention to ensure that by the end of our children’s primary education, they have acquired an understanding of both spoken and written French, confidence to speak in French with others and know how important other languages can be in their future.

We hope that all pupils will develop a genuine interest and curiosity about languages, finding them enjoyable and exciting and show a desire to continue their language learning past KS2.

Implementation

CUSP French has been designed to serve young linguists in the modern world. Key areas of focus have been deliberately selected to ensure that pupils are equipped with knowledge and language that will serve them in engaging with important and useful topics such as the environment, well-being and travel.

The curriculum focusses not just on vocabulary acquisition but also on the building blocks of learning a new language. French is taught from Years 3 – 6 (Phases 2 and 3). Each year group has 6 blocks of 5 weeks teaching.

Blocks contains videos that have been recorded by a native French speaker to give pupils an authentic experience of improving their own French speaking and focus on phonics, grammatical structures, reading, writing, oracy and vocabulary.  

Cumulative progression and coherent substantive concepts 

There is a significant focus on revisiting throughout the curriculum with the aim of pupils mastering key knowledge that can be built on as they move through the programme of study.   

Cultural development concept 

Our curriculum has a strong focus on supporting pupils to meaningfully develop their understanding of other cultures and issues that impact on the wider global community. For this reason, CUSP French has a specific emphasis on teaching pupils about French customs, traditions and heritage, including those that are both similar or different to pupils’ own experiences of life in modern Britain. For example, significant French figures are introduced throughout the curriculum, as are notable French landmarks. Pupils will learn about the geography of France and its place within the wider world, including key trade exports and significant achievements of the French civilisation through history. 

Substantive and disciplinary knowledge concepts 

Each block includes key MFL linguistic concepts and previously learnt language concepts to enable pupils to build on known themes and vocabulary. Pupils are provided with the substantive and disciplinary knowledge and key vocabulary for each block.