St Erth Languages Curriculum
We teach French in our Languages Curriculum at St Erth
Intent
‘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.’ (National Curriculum 2014 – Appendix A)
At St Erth School we intend for our languages curriculum to inspire and enable all our children, ensuring their readiness to continue the study of a foreign language at KS3 by making them confident and knowledgeable in the subject. We intend for our curriculum to broaden the horizons of our pupils engaging their curiosity in other cultures and our countries connections with them, this is vital in learning for every child whatever their ability level. Our curriculum covers all elements of the national curriculum program of study for KS2. Children at St Erth will receive engaging and well-planned French lessons with a new focus each term. The sequence of substantive and disciplinary knowledge is carefully arranged to ensure pupils are able to know and remember more over time. To engage and excite the children, we use Languagenut interactive resources to teach French and enable children to continue their study at home. The resource also allows them to investigate other languages, which we motivate children to do, preparing them for a wider study of languages in KS3.
Implementation
Our Languages curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in languages with termly focuses in KS2. In KS1 and early years children take part in fun activities, games and songs to help them develop awareness of basic French words and phrases. All lessons delivered are supported by Languagenut resources and its teaching sequence. Children will progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics. Children are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, games and activities. As children’s substantive and disciplinary knowledge grows, children record their work through a range of tailored activities to ensure all children can access the school’s curriculum and meet the requirements of the national curriculum for Languages. Pupils with SEND are considered throughout planning. Units of work are carefully sequenced as subsequent lessons within a unit build on the knowledge developed in the previous lesson. As units progress children’s knowledge will develop and they will be supported to demonstrate this with growing complexity. Teachers plan for pupils with SEND in their class, according to their need and our graduated response. For some this will only require small adjustments, through to those who may need to work on a different objective within the subject. Assessment of progress may also look different for pupils with SEND, allowing them every opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned. In addition to implementing the school’s curriculum, as detailed in our teaching sequences, the school will also promote the French language through: celebration assemblies, cookery sessions and an annual French day for example, to facilitate a whole school approach to learning a foreign language and developing cultural awareness. Children will be supported to continue their learning beyond curriculum time using the Languagenut application to review and embed their learning.
Impact
As pupils move through the curriculum, they will develop an increasingly complex and detailed schema of both substantive and disciplinary knowledge. This knowledge and their efficiency in their application of it, will ensure they are ready to continue to be successful in learning a language at KS3.
As children move through the scheme of work, they will move from being able to use nouns and articles to form short phrases to using and applying the full range of substantive and disciplinary knowledge our curriculum provides them with. They will then be able to formulate their own more personalised responses based on a much wider bank of vocabulary, linguistic structures and grammatical knowledge. They will be able to enrich their language by developing an understanding of French culture.
The impact of the curriculum will be measured by:
- Observing children speaking and listening
- Marking of written work
- Discussing pupil’s learning with them
- Analysing pupil’s composite outcomes to sequences of learning
- Analysing data drawn from pupil’s progress on the Languagenut application.
- Moderation of these forms of evidence in staff meetings
Monitoring will be carried out termly by the Languages subject leader.
Supporting children with SEND in the Languages curriculum at St Erth
Our aim for all children with SEND is for them to be happy, ready to lean, accessing the curriculum and making progress. To achieve this we aim to ensure that any barriers that they have are addressed as much as possible so as not to limit their opportunities. Our approach to achieving this will always depend on what is best for the individual some examples of how we achieve this in Languages through curriculum design and adaptation are below:
- Tailor lessons to meet the diverse needs of learners.
- Use varied teaching methods (visual, auditory, kinesthetic).
- Incorporate educational apps and software that offer interactive and engaging ways to learn French. This is done using Languagenut. The program is individualised and is fully adaptable to pupil needs.
- Use text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools to assist students with reading and writing difficulties.
- Utilising pictures, flashcards, and videos to reinforce vocabulary and concepts. These are used in class and reinforced with Languagenut.
- Individualised adaptations based upon pupils Individual Education Plans.
- For pupils with hearing impairments technology allows for amplification of content by the teacher and through the Languagenut app.
