Intent, implementation, and impact Statement: 

French at Bitterley CofE Primary School

At Bitterley, we encourage pupils ‘to be courageous, strong and do everything in love.’

The importance of understanding that each of us is rooted in love is not under-estimated at Bitterley.

‘Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’  Corinthians 13:7 Trusting in love gives us the courage to be ourselves. Courage is from the Latin ‘coeur’ which means ‘To tell the story of who you are with your whole heart’. Our intention is for our pupils to leave Bitterley prepared for ‘Life in all its fullness’ and ready to tell their own stories.

Our Christian vision has driven us to create a bespoke curriculum for our pupils that pursues the acquisition of wisdom, knowledge and skills alongside educating for aspiration, dignity, and respect. It is also our intention to nurture a sense of community, so that all members of our school develop a deep sense of belonging, both locally and within the wider world. We believe that these attributes will support our pupils to live well together and flourish, as they move on to High School and beyond.

Our curriculum offer is therefore divided into three focus areas: ‘Courage, strength and love’:

Courageous – Living wholeheartedly. Using the knowledge and skills in our curriculum to choose our own path free from stereotyping; being curious, aspirational. Speaking out for those who do not have a voice. 

Strength – Having a growth mindset, developing resilience, being able to persevere to achieve our goals to create a confident well-rounded citizen in our diverse world.

Love – Embracing our neighbours, developing a greater awareness of the challenge’s others face in life and how we can make a difference in our school community, local community and further afield.  Through the curriculum we develop pupils understanding of challenges locally and globally. We teach pupils to listen with respect.

At Bitterley CofE Primary School, we believe that a carefully sequenced curriculum can empower our pupils and reduce social inequality, whilst providing the knowledge they need for the next stage of their education and beyond. We view our curriculum as a spiral: the mapped-out journey of concept building leading to a change in long term memory and an increase in knowledge. Through progressive concepts throughout the curriculum, the children will develop a deep and rich understanding, meaning that the knowledge and skills that are acquired are more likely to be remembered. Our curriculum sets out WHAT will be learned and WHEN it will be learned. We understand that cultural capital is the essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success. Through our curriculum we provide different experiences and opportunities to support the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child gains over time

Intent

To enable our children to celebrate and welcome differences in our world, it is vital they have an understanding of different languages and countries.  By introducing and exposing our children to this they will have a deepened ability to show respect and play a valuable part in our global society.  To achieve this end point we aim, though Kapow Primary’s French scheme of work aims to instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. Through our scheme of work, we aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages, developing a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future.

Implementation

We teach French across Key Stage 2. The Kapow French scheme of work is designed with six strands that run throughout. These are:

• Speaking and pronunciation
• Listening

• Reading and writing
• Grammar
• Intercultural understanding
• Language detective skills

Our National
National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.

curriculum mapping shows which of our units cover each of the

Our Progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills and knowledge that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2.

Through Kapow Primary’s French scheme, pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond.

The Kapow Primary scheme is a spiral curriculum, with key skills and vocabulary revisited repeatedly with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included throughout our French units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.

Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all. In order to help pupils, retain their French learning, we provide information about how to incorporate French into the classroom environment every day in our ‘During the week’ sections.

Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective languages curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Kapow has been created with the understanding that many teachers do not feel confident delivering the full languages curriculum and every effort has been made to ensure that they feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression. Lessons include a section entitled, 'Teacher knowledge - language points' to explain key grammar and other details to the teacher before the lesson, together with a Key vocabulary and pronunciation presentation with sound files to demonstrate the correct pronunciation. Many of the other presentations included in the lessons also include sound files, supporting teachers who are less confident with their own pronunciation to deliver the lesson and support the children's learning.

All children in KS2 are taught French in a weekly discreet lesson. This is delivered by the class teacher. KS1 children are introduced to MFL through exploring other languages informally when studying another country. We are also focusing on French outside the classroom. Songs will be learnt in French during whole school assemblies and signs around the school will also be displayed to make language learning more meaningful and give it a purpose.

Impact

The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be monitored continuously through
both formative and summative assessment. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. An assessment spreadsheet is also available to record children’s progress in each lesson to enable you to build a picture of their learning through each unit.

After the implementation of Kapow Primary French, pupils should leave school equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.

The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary French scheme of work is that children will:

• Be able to engage in purposeful dialogue in practical situations (e.g., ordering in a cafe, following directions) and express an opinion. 

• Make increasingly accurate attempts to read unfamiliar words, phrases, and short texts. 

• Speak and read aloud with confidence and accuracy in pronunciation. 

• Demonstrate understanding of spoken language by listening and responding 
appropriately. 

• Use a bilingual dictionary to support their language learning. 

• Be able to identify word classes in a sentence and apply grammatical rules they have learnt. 

• Have developed an awareness of cognates and near-cognates and be able to use them to tackle unfamiliar words in French, English, and other languages. 

• Be able to construct short texts on familiar topics. 

• Meet the end of Key Stage 2 stage expectations outlined in the national curriculum for Languages. 


Assessment criteria is being developed, in line with national curriculum aims, to enable teachers to assess the progress of children in their language learning as they move through Key Stage 2, ensuring that children are supported and challenged as appropriate.  This data is analysed on a termly basis, and an action plan drawn up to address any identified gaps.

 Pupil Voice is also used to further develop the MFL curriculum, through questioning of pupils' views and attitudes to learning a language.