Intent

At Wigton Moor Primary School, everyone learns, and everyone achieves because everyone matters. We believe that learning a language enriches the curriculum, providing excitement, enjoyment and challenge, helping to create enthusiastic learners and to develop positive attitudes to language learning throughout life.  The language that we have chosen to teach is French. 

 It is our intention that everyone learns

• to read, speak and write French language, as well as gaining knowledge about French culture.
• the foundations for further foreign language learning at high school, even if this is not French.
• that learning a language gives us 'liberation from insularity' enabling a wider view of the world as well as developing linguistic skills for the future

Implementation

We follow the requirements of the National Curriculum which can be seen in the document below. Our implementation means that everyone learns through:

• our planning eg The Long Term Plan for French exemplifies a progression of curriculum content, skills and technical language from Y3-6 which is both coherent and rigorous. To support our planning and to ensure that the work planned was of an appropriately rigorous level, La Jolie Ronde (Wakefield) Scheme of Work formed the basis of planning when deciding on which units to teach and when they would be taught. The scheme has been adapted to suit the needs and interests of the pupils at Wigton Moor. Medium Term Plans detail the teaching and learning in each session.
• our no-ceiling approach to the teaching of French in all our sessions. All children are supported so that they have the possibility of achieving the outcome of the lesson, through tasks that are challenging but achievable, to allow experience of success in academic tasks. We use of a range of the following:

1. Word banks – created by the children and can be used as reference points throughout the unit.
2. Knowledge Organisers – knowledge/language summary documents created by the teacher and shared in the final session of the unit. These can be used as a prompt to refer back to in future sessions.
3. Bi-lingual dictionaries – in Upper KS2  effective usage is modelled and practised and can then be used to support translation and understanding of new language.
4. Pupils are challenged and stretched to deepen their learning by completing tasks independently without referring back to these resources.
5. Both the support and challenge opportunities are available to all in accordance with our ‘no ceiling’ approach

• allowing students some degree of autonomy in setting their goals or selecting the materials to use. eg in all tasks our children are encouraged to refer back to their prior knowledge and ‘use what you know’. Pupils are encouraged to use their own exercise books, Knowledge Organisers and in UKS2 Bilingual dictionaries as reference materials to support them if needed. Strategies for understanding and retaining knowledge such as cognates and identifying patterns in language are taught and practised. Key Knowledge  eg vocabulary words and phrases and grammatical concepts are revisited and practised  in lessons so that children learn more and remember more as they progress through the school. Knowledge Organisers of units completed and links to prior learning are made are referred back to, in order to deepen learning.  
• encouraging a ‘growth mind-set’ that all students make mistakes and that mistakes can be learning opportunities rather than failures (Dweck, 2000).eg As a school we have developed good learning behaviours for building independence, persistence  and resilience across the curriculum. This is exemplified in French lessons where pupils have the confidence to take part in oral sessions to practise their growing language skills. They are not afraid to ask for help when they need it or to indicate that they need further clarification of the learning. This is as a direct result of the good relationships built around the school between staff and pupils which encourages children to ‘have a go’ and to use the support available to them. This in turn gives them the confidence to attempt the ‘Challenge’ tasks.  

Impact

We know the impact of our intent and implementation means that most attain the appropriate age related National curriculum expectations as a result of:

• on-going Assessment for Learning in lessons and marking of written work. 
• quadrant assessments which assess key knowledge by asking 4 questions about knowledge learnt:

1. during the previous topic
2. at the beginning of the current topic
3. in the middle of the current topic
4. at the end of the current topic