The Bliss Charity School’s Modern Foreign Languages curriculum aims to widen pupils’ experiences of other cultures and instil a love of language learning. Through a carefully sequenced curriculum, pupils are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to communicate fluently, confidently and with spontaneity.

Teaching in Modern Foreign Languages will lay the foundations for language learning that encourages and enables pupils to apply their skills to learning further languages beyond Key Stage Two. The curriculum supports children in becoming language detectives and deepens pupils’ understanding of the English language, focusing on similarities and differences in sound patterns, vocabulary and grammar.

The Modern Foreign Languages curriculum is designed with six strands that run throughout. These are:

• Speaking and pronunciation
• Listening
• Reading and writing
• Grammar
• Intercultural understanding
• Language detective skills

Our curriculum mapping document shows which units cover each of the National Curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.

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

The languages curriculum 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 also allow children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of learning.

The impact of our curriculum can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. By the end of Key Stage Two, pupils 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.