At St Mary's, we believe learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and provides an opening to other cultures.  Our French curriculum will enable children to develop an interest in learning other languages in a way that is enjoyable and stimulating. Through careful planning, we aim to deliver a high-quality French curriculum which introduces the children to the French language in an enjoyable and stimulating ways, with a focus on building vocabulary and fluency.

We aim to

• Inspire pupils’ curiosity about languages and deepen their understanding of the world.
• Build pupil’s confidence in being able to both read, write and orally use French in everyday situations. 
• Stimulate and encourage the essential skills of speaking and listening, reading and writing in tandem with key phonetic and grammatical knowledge.  
• Promote the importance of communication and language.
• Widen our pupil's understanding of the world through understanding how French is used across the wider world.
• Build the children’s ‘culture capital’ so that they have a growing awareness of cultural similarities and differences in other countries.
• Develop children’s interest in learning languages, whilst laying the foundations for future learning as well as equipping them with the possibility of studying and working in other countries.

At St Mary's children have weekly lessons in French throughout Key Stage 2. Learning is designed to progressively develop children's skills in the French language. Children progressively acquire a bank of vocabulary organised around topics of interest and through a variety of contexts.

A typical French lesson includes learning new vocabulary and its correct pronunciation through learning French phonic sounds. This is introduced along with appropriate grammar rules which is then applied to conversations or short writing skills, providing further opportunities for children to use and apply their growing knowledge of the French vocabulary.  As children’s confidence and skills grow, they will:

• participate in practical activities
• learn songs
• play games to help improve memory and recall
• record their work through pictures, captions and sentences.
• see visual prompts to support children in translating new vocabulary.
• access word mats/ knowledge organisers to support their learning and recap previous learning.
• develop their speaking and listening skills further through conversational work

Below is a copy of our MFL curriculum, which sets out the key knowledge and skills within each KS2 class.