The aims of Modern foreign language (MFL) lessons at Janet Duke Primary School are to develop linguistic competence, confidence and lifelong language-learning skills in pupils and introduce an international dimension to their learning. As well as also providing an opening to other cultures, staff at our school feel that a high-quality languages education fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. Through careful planning and utilisation of appropriate resources, MFL teaching at Janet Duke strives to 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. At the forefront of our thoughts is the desire to provide children with an enjoyable experience of MFL, so they will cherish opportunities to learn the subject and develop their skills as they go on to enter Key Stage 3 (KS3).

The main aim of MFL delivery at the school is on independent learning and oral communication; to make MFL lessons stimulating, teachers are encouraged to use games, engage in role-play, sing songs and use IT / computing skills to stimulate excellence and enjoyment in MFL lessons. Janet Duke Primary School is also keen to use multi-sensory and kinesthetic approaches to teaching that reinforce the learning of MFL in our pupils. Simple reading, oral practice and/or writing activities take place in most French lessons.

At Janet Duke Primary School, MFL makes a significant contribution to PSHE and citizenship education by teaching children how similar and different their lives are to those who live in other countries. Children are encouraged to value the privileges and opportunities they have in their own lives and show empathy for those living in other countries who may not have these. Differences are seen not as a barrier or reason for division but as part of the world, and life’s, natural diversity, and are recognised and appropriately celebrated.

MFL scheme of work

Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2; when taking the register, teachers enable their pupils to answer in French. Pupils are also taught the basic greetings also say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in French, and the option to choose the MFL activities for ‘5 a-Day’ fitness task.

The school are currently using the Rigolo scheme of work. It is a comprehensive skill that follows the National Curriculum and challenges pupils. It prepares the pupils for KS3. Each unit has a unit plan that details the objectives for each unit, any practical work that will be completed, key vocabulary, models, diagrams and key questioning. These are working documents and are adapted as per the needs of the children/individual classes. At Janet Duke, we strongly feel that child-lead learning is extremely important and therefore try to follow the children’s direction wherever possible whilst still achieving our objectives. Teachers plan individual lessons to ensure that lessons are as engaging and exciting as possible for our children.

MFL scheme of work

There are whole school stand-alone displays both for French (the language learned by KS2 pupils). Some KS2 classes have an MFL display, where items such as key vocabulary/examples of work are displayed for the children to use in MFL lessons. Each display aims to provide interactive activities for the children to take part in.