Modern Foreign Languages:
French and Spanish

At Rocks Park Primary School we aim to provide appropriate education for all pupils within an atmosphere that facilitates the opportunity for all children to realise their potential. Rocks Park Primary School promotes a secure and happy environment and nurtures an atmosphere of mutual respect and tolerance. All pupils are valued and our ethos celebrates diversity of experiences, interest and achievement. The learning of a modern foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for all pupils. Pupils develop communication and literacy skills that lay the foundation for future language learning. They develop linguistic competence, extend their knowledge of how language works and explore differences and similarities between a foreign language and the English language. Learning another language raises awareness of the multi-lingual and multicultural world and introduces an international dimension to pupils’ learning, giving them an insight into their own culture and those of others.

Rocks Park Primary School will offer the children a broad taster of different languages, by teaching French in LKS2 and Spanish in UKS2. Key Stage 1 and reception will introduce foreign languages linked to their subjects, which will give the children a base to build upon. The school uses the Language Angels scheme of work to support the teaching and learning of both French and Spanish. This provides clear progression for the development of speaking and listening and vocabulary acquisition. There are resources to support the teaching and learning opportunities for pupils. The lessons will provide the children with a variety of the following techniques to encourage children to have an active engagement with the language:

Games – in order to develop vocabulary through repetition, reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.

Role-play – these should relate to the situations the children may find themselves in the future.

Action songs and rhymes – to develop phonetic skills, memory skills and to further vocabulary.

Reading and writing quality materials.

We build children’s confidence through praise for any contribution they make in the foreign language, however tentative and all children can access the learning by providing them with scaffolded learning.

The aim is to ensure that the pupils enjoy their work through physical and practical activities as well as the use of pictures, videos and many opportunities for speaking and listening activities. Each class is taught for 60 minutes, in one big block or segmented into shorten chunks to provide repetition, direct teaching per week. This will be supplemented by short classroom activities when appropriate. The written activities are differentiated so all pupils will be challenged accordingly to their level of learning. In order to enhance the cultural understanding of the children, the school provides them throughout the year with different assemblies or special cultural afternoons/days to implement and celebrate their learning.