Norristhorpe Junior & Infant School

At Norristhorpe, our French curriculum is based on the ‘Kapow’ scheme of work which is designed with six strands that run throughout.

These are:

 • Speaking and pronunciation

 • Listening

 • Reading and writing

 • Grammar

 • Intercultural understanding

 • Language detective skills

Our National curriculum mapping shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the strands.

Our Progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills and knowledge that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of Key Stage 2.

Through our 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. At Norristhorpe, the children are taught French by a language specialist. French is timetabled for thirty minutes every week in Key Stage 2.

The impact of our French curriculum is monitored continuously through both formative and summative assessment. After the implementation of or French curriculum, pupils should leave Norristhorpe equipped with a range of language-learning skills to enable them to study French, or any other language, with confidence at Key Stage 3.

• A Norristhorpe learner should leave school able to:
• 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.