MFL Curriculum Information

Introduction

The intention of the French curriculum at Our Lady’s is that children are taught to develop an interest in learning other languages in a way that is enjoyable and stimulating. In our school, we teach a foreign language to all children in year 3 -6 as part of the normal school curriculum. We do this for several reasons. Firstly, we believe that many children really enjoy learning to speak another language. Secondly, we also believe that the earlier a child is exposed to a foreign language, the faster the language in question is acquired. We also believe that it is a good idea to introduce a new language to children when they are at primary school, as they tend to be less self-conscious about speaking aloud at this stage of their development. It is widely believed that the early acquisition of a foreign language facilitates the learning of other foreign languages later in life. Our MFL curriculum is designed to progressively develop children skills in languages, through regular taught lessons. Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics.

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What pupils say about MFL at Our Lady’s

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'I really like my French lessons. We play word games and sing songs to help us to learn the language.'

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'We learned a song about the days of the week and it was fun.' 

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'I like that time to speak in French with each other pupils. '

European Day of Languages

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On Friday 25th September, Our Lady’s celebrated European Day of Languages. The European Day of Languages is celebrated every year on 26th September. Now that it will be in its seventeenth year, we thought that we would celebrate this day in style.

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The aims of the European Day of Languages include:

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• To celebrate the diversity of languages and cultures within Europe.

• To encourage language learning at any age.

• To promote intercultural understanding.

• To diversify the range of languages learnt.

On this day, the children learned new knowledge and skills in a variety of languages, tasting different national food and much more. If you can speak a foreign language, can cook a national dish, can dance a national dance, create some national art etc or would like to help out on future days, Our Lady’s would love for you to get involved. Further details will follow for next year's event 

The staff and children thoroughly enjoyed the day!

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Bastille & International Day - 14th July 2022

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This summer, we again hope to run Bastille Day, which will be based on a new theme. This year’s day will include international Art, Food and Music.  A French style continental breakfast will be served in the morning to the children, staff and parents/carers who would like to join us would be most welcome.  Children and staff will also get the opportunity to dress up in a costume to celebrate international and cultural diversity. We hope to involve St Joseph’s R.C. High School again, as their MFL department were involved last year via Microsoft Teams and the children really enjoyed the lessons. If you can speak French or another additional language and would like to be involved in our day, please let our office know.

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Homework and Involvement of Parents:

Include:

• The importance of parents in supporting and encouraging language learning at every stage

• The different sorts of language homework

• The different requirements over different years of KS2

In the initial stages of language learning, the most useful follow up learning for pupils is to re-visit the learning from the lesson with an adult or older sibling. Simply being asked to recall the new language and even ‘teach it’ to a parent or brother / sister provides an ideal opportunity for the new language to take root in longer term memory. To this end, the school values the vital contribution of parents to the language learning process. Key words for each unit of work are available on the MFL curriculum section of our website. Parents are encouraged to engage their children in sharing their new words with them. In upper KS2, when literacy skills are more fully developed, homework will take a variety of forms, and parents are encouraged to ask their children to show them their homework each week and explain what they are learning.

Assessment

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At Our Lady’s Primary School, in line with our curriculum intent, we have developed a foundation subject tracking system.  It will capture our ongoing assessments of each child showing us how well our curriculum is being implemented as well as how our children are progressing through the curriculum and the impact it has on their learning.  It will enable teachers to plan subsequent learning opportunities so that individual needs are met and children can make progress towards the end of year expectations.  Judgements relating to end of year expectations will be made at the end of the academic year.