MFL at St Patrick’s

Subject Leader: Mrs Williams
I am Mrs Williams , MFL subject leader here at St. Patrick’s
As MFL lead, my role is to support teachers, promote a love of language learning and to monitor the progress of children.
I believe that learning a second language at an early age is important as it gives children a good understanding of the structure of other languages and it gives children the opportunity to develop their cultural understanding of languages across the world.
We are also fortunate enough to have established links and to work closely with one of our MAC high schools who provide further support and opportunities for the children in our school to aid transition of our pupils where French is taught alongside other languages.
To support the progress children make across Key Stage 2, I have created a progression map focused on Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing and understanding of Grammar. It also shows the vocabulary learnt in each class and how it builds over the years.

In order to gain an understanding of how French is taught across the school, I will monitor my subject termly and gain evidence from books and pupil voice. I will use this to inform the strengths and areas for development in my subject, which I will share with staff individually. During the monitoring I will also get feedback from staff on the areas they feel are strengths/ areas for development and will support them to the best of my ability.

We follow the National Curriculum for Languages, selecting French as our chosen language.

A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

Our Aims

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources.
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation.
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

All pupils in Key Stage 2 are taught French for 30 minutes every week by their class teacher. Teaching is based on the Key Stage 2 Framework for Languages and uses a variety of techniques to encourage pupils to have an active engagement with the language. We aim to develop skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing through a range of activities including games, songs, action poems, role play, books and cartoons.

Helping your child with French

Would you like to help your child learn the basic vocabulary to support their French work in school? The duo lingo app available on most app stores, provides support in a fun way and is FREE!

Download it today and get started, you could even join in with them to learn a new language too!

App Store Download

Play Store Download

MFL Documents

Useful Links

Aisha Year 3
We are learning greetings in French. I think it is a little bit hard because it is a new lesson but it is fun. I can now say hello ( Bonjour).

Aissata Year 4
I like learning French because now I can understand my parents more as they speak French.
I enjoy using actions to learn new words and I like to answer the register in French.

Euan Year 5
I enjoy having the opportunity to learn a new language . If I travel to French speaking countries I will be able to ask for things and reply to people.

Neto Year 5
The French Café was amazing because we got to ask for food in French.

Ronnie Year 6
I like how we get to learn a new language because new things will last with you until you are older. You can use them if you travel to a new country. We get to act out new words in French which is fun.