Introduction

Learning a language is incredibly rewarding, challenging and fun.

Learning a language can help to improve social skills, communication and confidence and makes you more open-minded to other people and cultures.

Language learning promotes tolerance and understanding. The ability to understand and communicate in other languages is a fundamental skill for all citizens.

Languages may also support future studies as well as improving your employment potential.

Intent

All students in year 7 and 8 study French and Spanish. At Churchmead we believe that languages are accessible for all, as they are key to communication within the global community.  During lessons, exercises are differentiated to meet the needs of every pupil so that they have the opportunity to get involved, have fun and make progress.

Throughout the MFL curriculum, our students will develop their ability not only communicate in the target language, but also gain an understanding of the different cultures and identities associated with modern foreign languages.

Throughout their languages journey, we will develop our students’ listening, reading, writing and speaking skills.  They will be encouraged to develop their ability to communicate confidently and coherently with a native speaker.

Our vision in the MFL department is to enable all our students to be confident, culturally savvy, resilient and articulate language learners. Modern foreign languages inspire our students to be curious, ambitious and independent individuals who can apply languages in all aspects of life, from travel to work.

The textbooks we are using to support students learning are; Allez, Claro, AQA GCSE French and Spanish texts books. All of our MFL textbooks are available online via Kerboodle.

In addition to our textbooks, we use several web sites to enrich learning: linguascope, languages online and BBC bitesize.

Implementation

KS3 French

Pupils are in mixed ability sets with regular assessments and feedback to make sure that progression is made each term. At KS3 we use electronic textbooks Allez 1 and Allez 2 with differentiated tasks. Students can access both books on line on Kerboodle.

Y7 - Allez 1

Contexts and objectives:

Introduce yourself: physical description and your personality

Description of your family, including your pets

School and opinions about subjects

Places to live

Eating and drinking

Description of town

Clothes items for different occasions

Holidays and leisure activities

Activities in past/future

Y8 - Allez 2

Contexts and objectives:

Compare France and Britain

TV programme and preferences

Adventages of new technology

Teenegers and issues

Healthy lifestyle

Festivals

Transport and holidays

Types of homes

Jobs and ambitions

KS4 French

At KS4 we use electronically done books GCSE AQA French foundation and higher with differentiated tasks. Students can access both books on line on Kerboodle.

Pupils follow the AQA syllabus.

Aims and Learning Outcomes

AQA GCSE course should encourage students to develop:

  • Understanding of French in a variety of contexts
  • Knowledge of French and language learning skills
  • The ability to communicate effectively in French
  • Awareness and understanding of countries and communities where French is spoken.

AQA Specification Subject Content

The students will sit all their exams at the end of the course.

The specification covers three distinct themes. These themes apply to all four-question papers.

Theme 1: Identity and culture

(Family and friends, technology in everyday life, free time activities, customs and festivals)

Theme 2: Local, national, international and global areas of interest

(Region and hometown, social issues, global issues, travel and tourism)

Theme 3: Current and future study and employment

(My studies, education post 16, jobs, career choices and ambitions)

Assessments

GCSE French has a Foundation Tier (grades 1–5) and a Higher Tier (grades 4–9). Students must take all four-question papers at the same tier. Each paper is worth 25%.

Impact

We want our students to achieve their full potential by using a range of materials including GCSE criteria and end of Y11 targets. By learning a modern language, young people have a better understanding of world around them and values such as courage, compassion and commitment.

The results in GCSE modern languages have been a massive success with our students!

We are very proud to acknowledge that GCSE French results are excellent and in June 2022, 100% of our students achieved Grade 4 or above.

Community languages

We offer our students the opportunity to take an extra GCSE in community languages: Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, Italian, Panjabi, Japanese…

Events

To promote languages, we organise several events throughout the year:

EU Languages Day is celebrated on 26 September. In 2022 this was celebrated through whole school worship and a European flag competition.

For KS3 students we organize a vocabulary competition and a Christmas card competition and prizes are given at the whole school assembly.

Students in year 8 have the opportunity to have a pen pal from “Le Cèdre collège” in Rouen.  In previous years, the students from the French school have been and visited Churchmead for a day.