Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Intent, Implementation and Impact

Intent

Our languages curriculum has been designed to serve young linguists in the modern world. Key areas of focus have been deliberately selected to ensure that pupils are equipped with knowledge and language that will serve them in engaging with important and useful topics such as the environment, wellbeing and travel. The curriculum focuses not just on vocabulary acquisition but also on the building blocks of learning a new language. 

Our languages curriculum aligns with the National Curriculum for maintained schools in England guidance on the teaching of foreign languages in key stage 2 (ages 7 – 11). Within the National Curriculum, clear guidance is given around expectations of the purpose of learning a foreign language. This includes preparing pupils for learning further languages and equipping them to study and work in other countries.

Key aspects of study that are explicitly referenced in the National Curriculum:

• vocabulary acquisition

• varied oracy opportunities, including engagement in conversation

• phonics and accurate pronunciation

• grammatical constructs / knowledge

• reading and listening for meaning

• sentence composition

• simple writing tasks.

These are all carefully represented in our curriculum.

Additionally, the curriculum has a strong focus on supporting pupils to meaningfully develop their understanding of other cultures and issues that impact on the wider global community. For this reason, our languages curriculum has a specific emphasis on teaching pupils about French customs, traditions and heritage, including those that are both similar or different to pupils’ own experiences of life in modern Britain. Pupils will learn about the geography of France and its place within the wider world, including key trade exports and significant achievements of the French civilisation through history. 

Implementation

We implement our intent using CUSP French. Fully resourced, CUSP French is both teacher facing and pupil facing, building consistency in how French is taught across the school and ensuring that teachers, including those with no prior knowledge of French, have the subject knowledge required to teach the content. This makes it easier to cognitively process. This helps to accelerate new learning as children integrate prior understanding.

The CUSP French curriculum provides teachers with teaching slides, subject knowledge explainer videos, recorded resources and CPD videos to support staff with implementation and delivery. This is to allow teachers to focus their time on developing their knowledge of the content. The explainer videos have been recorded by a native French speaker to give teachers an authentic experience of improving their own French speaking.

There is a significant focus on revisiting throughout the curriculum with the aim of pupils mastering key knowledge that can be built on as they move through the programme of study. We organise intended learning into units. These group the knowledge, skills and understanding that we want children to remember, do and use. Each unit aims to activate and build upon prior learning to ensure better cognition and retention.

CUSP French is taught from Years 3 – 6. Each year group has 6 units of 5 weeks teaching. Units follow a clear structure and this allows both teachers and pupils to learn the routines and rhythms of the curriculum over time. Additional weeks in the academic year can be used for consolidation, revisiting or enrichment. Each unit includes study of key linguistic concepts and previously learnt language concepts to enable pupils to build on known themes and vocabulary.

Units of learning, rather than lessons themselves, typically reflect our six phases:

CONNECT | EXPLAIN | EXAMPLE | ATTEMPT | APPLY | CHALLENGE

The core content overview outlines the substantive and disciplinary knowledge and key vocabulary that pupils will learn throughout each unit. This includes the vocabulary, phonics and grammatical constructs that pupils will learn, as well as the opportunities to develop their reading, writing and oracy skills. There is limited emphasis on pupils’ writing of French and a greater focus on reading, oracy and laying strong linguistic foundations. This is because pupils need to hear, see and say whole, correctly spelt words frequently before they are asked to apply these to written tasks. As pupils become more confident with curriculum content, teachers begin to develop pupils’ written French.

Teachers aim to revisit key language as frequently as possible. This could be through normal classroom interactions, for example greeting pupils, telling the time, discussing classroom equipment or when giving instructions. This will help pupils to remember knowledge that they have learnt during their French lessons. Revisiting is inherently built into the architecture of the CUSP French. This can be seen in many places, such as between individual units in each year group on the long-term sequence, within blocks in the Remember part of each lesson, in the quizzing that can be used throughout, at the end of and after a unit of study.

Lesson Structure

Clear structures and learning routines underpin our curriculum. This allows pupils (and teachers) to direct their cognitive attention to the core content in each unit. Knowledge Notes are used to support instruction and the revisiting of new concepts. This strong focus on cognitive science provides the framework for pupils to deepen and broaden their knowledge of the French language and become confident, inspired linguists.

A typical lesson structure includes:

• BEFORE WE BEGIN This slide provides cultural information about France. This is essential for developing pupils’ global awareness and their knowledge of cultures beyond their own. On some occasions, the slide will revisit previously taught knowledge.

• REMEMBER Each lesson will revisit a concept or concepts previously taught

• VOCABULARY Pupils have an opportunity to see and hear key vocabulary that will be explored within this lesson. Instruction of the vocabulary is supported through the use of dual coding and audio clips.

• PHONICS Throughout KS2, pupils should be taught appropriate pronunciation. This includes instruction of the French phonic code. This has been carefully mapped across the CUSP French curriculum and is explicitly included in the lesson sequence.

• MON TOUR My Turn - This is a teacher-modelled task, providing opportunities for pupils to confidently understand the task explored in this lesson. As pupils progress through the curriculum, the tasks and content become more advanced.

• NOTRE TOUR Our Turn - Teachers guide pupils through a task that allows them to practise and embed key content taught during the lesson.

• VOTRE TOUR - Pupils apply their knowledge to a reading, writing or speaking task which allows them to embed their new knowledge.

Please see the Overall Curriculum Statements for more on our Intent, Implementation and Impact.