Kirkburton Middle School

French

Strategic Lead of French: Mrs S Barker | sbarker@themast.co.uk

The intent of our Modern Foreign Languages curriculum at Kirkburton Middle School is to develop confident, resilient language learners. Languages are part of the cultural richness of our society and the world in which we live and we aim to develop language learners with a strong awareness of the culture of French speaking countries. Our aim is for our students to have a sound understanding of French grammar, which includes the ability to apply it in new contexts. By the end of Year 8 we aim for our students to understand and use three tenses confidently and to be ready to progress to the next stage of their language learning.

The intent of our curriculum is implemented through the delivery of our knowledge rich curriculum. The MFL department has introduced the use of knowledge organisers which ensures that all pupils are aware of the grammar and vocabulary required for each unit. Knowledge organiser allow for work to be scaffolded and to provide home learning opportunities.

Units are taught using chunks of language and high frequency sentence patterns which are drilled with rigour before pupils practise their own spoken and written work. Pupils are encouraged to learn chunks of language to be committed to long-term memory . Skills and knowledge are revisited and language is recycled throughout the units. Retrieval activities have been introduced at the beginning of lessons to recycle language from previous units and years.

Scheme of Work

Year 6

Pupils have one French lesson per week and the aim is to build upon the experience and enjoyment of language learning that pupils have encountered in their First Schools.

Autumn Term

Talking About Yourself

  • Greetings, saying how you are, name, age.
  • Focus on pronunciation.
  • Alphabet, months and days, saying when your birthday is, classroom instructions, summative assessment.
  • Christmas celebrations in France and Francophone countries.
Spring Term

Talking About Yourself

  • Pets and colours.
  • Making nouns plural and the introduction of adjectival agreement.

Talking About Your Family

  • Brothers and sisters.
  • Saying if you have/haven’t got brothers and/or sisters.
  • Easter traditions in France and Francophone countries.
Summer Term

Continuation of Talking About Your Family

Hobbies and Interests

  • Giving opinions about hobbies.
  • Learning verbs of opinion and regular ‘er’ verbs.
  • Bastille Day and the French Revolution.

Year 7

In Year 7 we move to two lessons per week in French. As pupils have become more proficient in working in the first person in Year 6, we now move into using third person verbs and then gradually into all persons.

Autumn Term

Describing Our Family

  • Family members and adjectives to describe personality.
  • Learning the different words for my and talking about how old other people are and what they are called.
  • Describing our appearance and that of others, expressing our opinion about family.

School Life 

  • Describing what is in the classroom and what equipment we have/don’t have.
  • Focus on masculine/feminine nouns. 
  • School subjects. Giving opinions of school subjects.
  • Using conjunctions to link sentences.
  • Life in a French school.
  • Christmas celebrations in France.
Spring Term Free time
  • Giving opinions about hobbies about what we and others like to do.
  • Focus on regular –er verbs.
  • Hobbies and interests of ourselves and others.
  • Focus on the irregular verb “faire”.
Summer Term

My Home Life

  • Describing our homes and local area.
  • Talking about what rooms we have in our house and where our village/town is located.

Daily Routine

  • Daily routine and food and healthy eating. 
  • Reflexive verbs.

Year 8

Pupils continue to have two lesson per week of French. We prepare pupils for the skills and knowledge required in Year 9 and KS4. Our focus throughout the year is on giving justified opinions and using past, present and future tenses.

Autumn Term

My Local Area

  • Describing what there is/isn’t in our town/village, opinions of our area, what we do at the weekend.
  • Making arrangements to go out, telling the time and using the future tense.
Spring Term

My Teenage Life

  • Food and drink, café role play.
  • Expressing opinions about food and saying whether we are healthy.
  • Describing what we wear and how we use technology.
  • Past tense launch.
Summer Term

Holidays

  • Countries, transport and accommodation. 
  • Weather.
  • Past tense continued.
  • Holiday activities.
  • Using different tenses.

French Documents

Subjects

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