Burton Road Primary School

MFL (Modern Foreign Languages) Policy

Written August 2021

Updated August 2023, Mrs R Farrell

MFL Rationale

Foreign language learning at primary school level is imperative to spark children’s curiosity into other cultures and deepens their understanding of the wider world. It creates opportunities for children which are useful in later life, to be able to communicate with others, within our diverse world. It fosters a respectful and positive attitude towards language learning throughout life.

At Burton Road Primary School, we enormously value the importance of foreign language learning and so we give our pupils the opportunity to visit France in Year 6. Our residential trip is a really profound learning opportunity, where children are immersed in French culture and it is an unforgettable experience that pupils remember for life. We are lucky enough to have an expert language specialist, who delivers outstanding teaching and learning of French across KS2 from Year 3 up until Year 6.

 Primary foreign language learning helps pupils to:

• 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
• 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.

National curriculum 2013

Knowledge and Skills:

Our whole curriculum has been devised with the Year 6 trip in mind, in addition to preparing our pupils for further foreign language learning in KS3 and later life. This includes which topic areas we have chosen and which vocabulary has been picked as essential knowledge for the children to acquire. Cultural elements are embedded within lessons, again to give them a real purpose and a broad understanding of the world. We feel our curriculum has a real purpose, as children are given real life opportunities to apply their French language learning in the classroom using transactional language and when visiting France. Our topics have been sequenced in a way so that key grammatical elements can be revisited and built upon each time and the order of them allows children to revisit their prior learning and make connections.

Our scheme is planned so that children are taught by our language specialist four half terms per year. Please refer to the long-term plan, medium-term plan and the progression document which includes the progression in vocabulary, phonics, grammar and outlines the key knowledge and skills taught across the year groups.

At Burton Road, we aim to make our MFL curriculum hands on and practical with a huge focus on speaking, listening and phonics. Our skills document outlines the key pillars of progression, which are incorporated into each lesson, showing how our children progress in phonics (representing the sounds in writing and how to pronounce the sounds when speaking), listening, saying and writing new vocabulary and grammar (including how to conjugate verbs depending on the subject pronoun or tense). These skills are essential in order for children to be able to read and write in a foreign language. We believe that it is vital for all children to experience a range of different learning opportunities and we aim to do this through exciting and engaging MFL lessons. We use a range of pedagogies, this involves the use of role play situations, songs and games to make language lessons practical and engaging.

Our languages curriculum is inclusive for all learners, including disadvantaged children and children with SEND. Learning is scaffolded appropriately to ensure all children can access the learning at their level independently. Our curriculum has been successfully adapted, designed and developed to ensure it is ambitious and meets the needs of pupils with SEND, developing their knowledge, skills and abilities to apply what they know and can do with increasing fluency and independence.

Children who have less significant barriers may have other reasonable adjustments such as; decreased demands, pre-teach, adjustments either to the curriculum or pedagogy. Examples of this may include...

• Removal of barriers such as writing by:

Matching activity

Missing words

Sticking activities

Scribes

Word mats

Sentence builders

• Visuals to support speaking tasks
• Dyslexia friendly texts (where appropriate)
• Coloured paper where appropriate
• Vocabulary mats
• Individual knowledge organisers

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