Languages

Subject Leaders - Mrs Cain and Mrs Jones 

Our governors, support staff and teachers met together to look at our curriculum progression. This was a part of our Curriculum Review. To view the progression document, please follow the link: Languages Progression

At Woodcote Primary School, our French aims to install a love of language and awareness of other cultures.

Intent:

At Woodcote, we understand that developing an understanding and love of languages will help to prepare our children for their future. Within our teaching at Woodcote, we ensure that all of our children across the school have the opportunity to develop their language knowledge and skills.  

We want all pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. We aim to give all our pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their knowledge and skills to future learning, developing a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future.

We have created a progression document that enables all children in Key Stage 2 to develop their knowledge and skills in languages.

To ensure that this happens, we believe in developing all our children in the following areas:

• Speaking and Pronunciation
• Listening
• Reading and Writing
• Grammar
• Intercultural Understanding
• Language Detective Skills

Implementation:

At Woodcote, the teaching of Languages begins in Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, where the children are introduced to simple songs, rhymes and phrases. The children enjoy playing with the sounds of a new language and are given the ‘taster’ in order to develop their knowledge and skills further in key stage 2.  

Within our Languages curriculum, we use a variety of teaching approaches to ensure that the children develop their knowledge and understanding.  

This year, to further strengthen the teaching of Languages within Woodcote, we have decided to use ‘Kapow’. The reason why we have decided to adopt this scheme is that our children will benefit from the implementation of the clear structure, building upon prior learning and allowing our children to develop the key knowledge and skills. The scheme also provides teachers with online continued professional development which has helped to develop confidence, which in turn helps the children to progress further. As the scheme has only been implemented this year, we acknowledge that it will take time for the children to reach the expected standard by the end of the key stage. Therefore, teaching staff use the scheme as a starting point, looking at the needs of children within their class and planning teaching activities, ensuring that children can access the learning and build upon prior knowledge. Differing levels of support, challenge, resources or method of recording are used, so that all children across the key stage can continue to access the learning and deepen their understanding of the Languages curriculum.

Impact:

Developing a love of learning languages will help the children to progress and give wider opportunities in their future. It is vital that subject leads constantly monitor and assess the impact of our Languages Curriculum and the subject leads will also implement the following:

• Staff Audits
• Discussions with Class Teachers
• Learning Walks of Teaching and how languages are displayed throughout the classroom
• Work scrutiny to allow a deeper focus of class work.
• Staff meeting, where Language learning is discussed and reflected upon.

At the end of each unit, the children are teacher assessed against the progression document with a best fit approach, whether each child is working below, at or exceeding expectations. The assessment includes opportunities to record key areas of development, as well as noting where the children have been able to shine.  This information is shared with the Language Leads and with the next year’s class teacher, enabling them to build upon prior knowledge by having a clearer picture of the children’s strengths and areas for development. 

These methods will ensure that we are teaching alongside the curriculum objectives, as well as ensuring the scheme we follow allows the children to develop and retain key knowledge and skills that they have learnt. This prepares children for the transition into the next year group, including their move to Key Stage 3 and the next stage of their learning journey. We aim to inspire a love of learning Languages and a desire to deepen their understanding.