Languages at Brightwell
"We are Linguists"
Curriculum Intent
At Brightwell Primary School we follow the Kapow French scheme of work. Their scheme aims to instill a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want pupils to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. Through our scheme of work, we aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages, developing a strong understanding of the English language, facilitating future study and opening opportunities to study and work in other countries in the future. Kapow Primary’s French scheme of work supports pupils to meet the national curriculum end of Key stage 2 attainment targets.
Curriculum Implementation
The Kapow French scheme of work is designed with six strands that run throughout. These are: • Speaking and pronunciation • Listening • Reading and writing • Grammar • Intercultural understanding • Language detective skills
Through Kapow Primary’s French scheme, pupils are given opportunities to communicate for practical purposes around familiar subjects and routines. The scheme provides balanced opportunities for communication in both spoken and written French, although in Year 3 the focus is on developing oral skills, before incorporating written French in Year 4 and beyond. The Kapow Primary scheme 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 are included throughout our French units, allowing children to make connections and apply their language skills to other areas of their learning.
Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. Our scheme of work focuses on developing what we term ‘language detective skills’ and developing an understanding of French grammar, rather than on committing to memory vast amounts of French vocabulary. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that lessons can be accessed and enjoyed by all. In order to help pupils, retain their French learning, we provide information about how to incorporate French into the classroom environment every day in our ‘During the week’ sections. Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective languages curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Lessons include a section entitled, 'Teacher knowledge - language points' to explain key grammar and other details to the teacher before the lesson, together with a Key vocabulary and pronunciation presentation with sound files to demonstrate the correct pronunciation. Many of the other presentations included in the lessons also include sound files, supporting teachers who are less confident with their own pronunciation to deliver the lesson and support the children's learning.
Curriculum Impact
The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. After the implementation of Kapow Primary French, pupils should leave school equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3. The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary French scheme of work is that children 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.
There is an after school French club that runs weekly and pupils of all ages are welcome to attend!
Please see our curriculum overviews on the class pages for further details of what the children are learning.
