“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”

— Frank Smith

What does MFL look like at Uplands?

At Uplands Primary School, we aim to enable all our children to respond to speakers of another language and to express their ideas and thoughts in speech and writing. From Owls to Eagles, all children in the school have the opportunity to learn to speak, read and write in French. In Owls, this involves learning songs and listening to simple, familiar stories in French. As the children progress through the school, they learn words and phrases that they are able to repeat back. In KS2, the children learn to have simple conversations with each other about how they are feeling and things they can see in the class and, moving into upper KS2, they can write out sentences and use the masculine and feminine nouns correctly.

The curriculum is structured in a way that allows for children to make links between current and previous learning. We use a lot of repetition to enable children to retain the basics they have been taught, for example numbers, days of the week, salutations and colours. We use songs, simple stories and cartoons to support the children’s learning. Where relevant, we make links to our five Big Ideas that appear throughout all subjects in our curriculum: environment, similarities and differences, diversity, relationships and changes. All classes start their lessons with a retrieval practice activity focusing on the key vocabulary about their current unit or a previous unit with the aim to support the children to know more, remember more and understand more.

Enrichment Opportunities

We enrich our curriculum through relevant trips, visitors to the school and cross-curricular language work. In the past, these have included:

• A French enrichment week where we learnt about the culture, the geography, the monuments, the food as well as the language of France.
• A French afterschool club.
• Writing the long date in French every day (UKS2 classes).
• Using French to deliver our basic classroom instructions.
• French songs in assembly.

French Outcomes

At Uplands, we communicate our learning through a variety of outcomes. In MFL, these can include conversations, answering questions, responding to instructions, pictorial representations, listening and responding to questions about a story, singing songs, reading and writing simple sentences, reading and writing simple paragraphs and even writing French poetry!

Class teachers formatively assess the children’s understanding of the key knowledge and vocabulary taught throughout their lessons. They also record an overall understanding of key areas at the end of each unit to enable the subject leader and future teachers to have a picture of each child’s learning journey across their time from Reception to Year 6.

MFL Knowledge

We have mapped out our French curriculum to build on previously learnt vocabulary and knowledge. We have set the end of unit outcomes that each unit should build towards.