French

French Overview

At Throckley Primary School, we know that the study of a modern foreign language enhances children’s literacy, self-confidence and broader cultural understanding. Our resolve to embed language learning within our school community is born of the statutory commitment in the National Curriculum to give every child between the ages of 7 and 11 the opportunity to learn a new language. With over 220 million native speakers internationally, French is the second most widely learnt language after English. The importance of outstanding modern foreign language provision is embodied in our curriculum drivers:

Understanding our place in the world

Given that 43% of the world’s population is bilingual, acquiring another language is a crucial asset in the global economy. With a worldwide French-speaking population of 700 million projected by 2050, bilingualism is an advantage in finding a job with multinational companies, in sectors ranging from retail and luxury goods to the automotive industry and aeronautics. Simultaneously, children gain a richer perspective of their own country and locality, making comparisons and contrasts.

Aspiring to achieve

Learning French provides a satisfying, enjoyable and intellectually challenging experience for children in coping with a different linguistic medium. The study of a language involves the practice of observational and study skills, and committing to memory useful material for subsequent recall: essential skills for higher education. Moreover, bilingual employees also experience boosts in jobs and pay, with many maintaining that language skills helped them to secure a job.

Broadening horizons

Thanks to the development of computing and the Internet, we can improve and deepen our connections with the world, celebrate languages and the diversity of cultures, and promote international and intercultural experiences. By lifting children above a pervasively American/English context, we ensure they can explore the life-style and culture of another land through the medium of its language.

Subject Aims

At Throckley, we follow the National Curriculum for languages, which aims to ensure that all pupils:

understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of 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;
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 Throckley, we follow the Primary French Project scheme of work and resources, which champions learning and teaching through the following imperatives:

ensure every child succeeds;
build on what the learners already know;
make learning vivid and real;
make learning an enjoyable and challenging experience;
do a lot with a little;
celebrate each learning outcome;
small steps lead to big changes.

There are two underlying principles underpinning the scheme of work:

children should enjoy their early years of learning French and to value the sights and sounds of France, the rhythm of the language and the real pleasure that can be gained from contact with the written word.
children should make real and measurable progress in their learning through innovative activities, challenging tasks and the desire to understand more and more as they listen to, speak and read French.

The Primary French Project (PFP) is precisely sequenced for maximum learning retention from Year 3 to Year 6 and beyond, ensuring that children know more and remember more. Children learn through oracy (listening and speaking), literacy (reading and writing) and the explicit teaching of French phonics.

Texts are chosen to engage learners at a level appropriate to their stage of development and the vocabulary and grammar they have acquired at that stage. Children enjoy the Learn French with Luc & Sophie books, specifically chosen for their engaging characters, situations and real world context.

By explicitly teaching linked phonemes and graphemes to children via the Phonic Planets scheme, learners gain the tools of phonological decoding, allowing them to improve the pace and accuracy of their sight-reading of an unfamiliar text in the target language.

The subject content in the National Curriculum, to which the Primary French Project adheres, can be viewed below.