Focus

Our focus at Saltford School is on fostering pupils’ curiosity and deepening their understanding of the world through a high quality languages education.

Intent:

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. At Saltford and in liaison with the Futura Learning Partnership, we aim to foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. We strongly believe that languages are a skill for life, and something that pupils should enjoy and find rewarding.  Through learning a foreign language, we provide opportunities for the children to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language with a focus on key phonics, grammar and vocabulary.

Language learning should provide the foundation for learning further languages. We hope to expand students’ cultural knowledge alongside developing their language skills.  

Through language learning, pupils gain a sound understanding of the structure of their own language, leading to effective communication in the foreign language.  Students of all abilities can benefit from learning a foreign language, supporting and enhancing their literacy learning across the curriculum. 

The Languages curriculum caters for students with varied previous language learning.  It enables students to build upon prior knowledge or language learning skills.

Students are well-prepared at the end of each key stage to tackle the next steps in language learning but equally, should they choose not to continue their formal language learning, they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to use in the workplace or for leisure or to further their learning. 

Inclusion: Our curriculum is ambitious for all and strives to address inclusion and disadvantage in its intent and implementation

Aims:  Underpinning the intent are key substantive concepts:

• Listening (comprehension)
• Speaking (production)
• Reading (comprehension)
• Writing (production) and Grammar
• Independence – Using reference materials
• Cultural Awareness and Understanding

For more details on these aims please refer to the Futura Knowledge Document for french which can be found here.

We have been working in teams across the Futura Learning Partnership to create a shared curriculum for all schools to use across a range of subjects. The Futura Languages Curriculum Framework for MFL across the trust can be found in this document here.

The handbook for Modern Foreign Languages and how it is taught at Saltford School can be found here.

In addition to our learning in class, we offer the children the opportunity to take their love of languages further through our Spanish and French clubs.