French

The curriculum for French is organised according to the building blocks of grammar that students must know in order to make good progress, with a focus on developing students’ skills in retaining vocabulary, understanding grammar rules and being aware of the phonics required when speaking the language. In lessons, students are typically exposed to vocabulary in different ways, ensuring their confidence with the 3 main pillars of language learning; vocabulary, grammar and phonics.

In Year 7 we start with greetings and basic details about oneself, before moving on to descriptions of oneself and others, using key verbs such as avoir-to have and être-to be. Students then widen their range of vocabulary by talking about the relationships they have with other people and describing their pets. This reinforces their knowledge of descriptions, and the sequencing has been carefully chosen for each new topic to build on students’ prior knowledge. Students finish the year after having studied the topic of school, during which they learn to give opinions about subjects, describe their timetables and compare teachers. This all reinforces some of the same key phrases and grammar points from earlier on in the year. Students are also introduced to present tense verb conjugation in year 7, laying the foundations for them to build on in year 8 when they see a wider range of verbs and tenses.

Year 8 begins by introducing key verbs such as aller-to go, jouer-to play and faire-to do, which enables students to start noticing patterns in verb formation to reinforce their knowledge from year 7. Reflexive verbs are taught along with daily routine, and there is a focus on how to create a varied piece of writing that sequences what they and others do in a typical day. Students use their knowledge of the verb aller-to go, in order to form the near future tense and start communicating in both the present and future tenses. There is an introduction to the perfect tense, again building on students’ knowledge of key auxiliary verbs from year 7, avoir-to have and être-to be. Our year 8 curriculum ends with the topic of where I live, with students describing where they live, their house/flat and details about their neighbourhood and what there is to do where they live.

In Year 9, the focus is on what students do at home to help with the chores, leading on to pocket money and then, to fit in with the careers focus in year 9 when students choose their options, jobs. This includes a particular focus on future plans, with students using their language to talk about the benefits of learning languages and how that impacts on what they will do in the future. We finish the year by tackling some of the content of the beginning of the GCSE, in order to ensure that all students who choose French are ready for the start of Key Stage 4.

We have very carefully thought about the sequencing of our curriculum and have based this on the content that students need to know to succeed in later key stages. As a so-called ‘building blocks’ subject, it is important that students understand the earlier concepts and can build on them as they advance through our curriculum.