French is taught weekly as a stand-alone subject, split into the strands of speaking and listening, writing and reading, with links being made to other areas of the curriculum where those links are strong.  Children coming into Christ the King have limited access French as a language, so teachers ensure that exposure to French, and information about France, forms a part of the school’s curriculum to fill these gaps.  Vocabulary is also given a central focus due to the low literacy entry points of the children to the school.

Christ the King follows the National Curriculum for French in all year groups in KS2 to enable children to make good progress from Year 3 to Year 6. French is taught using the ‘Cave Languages’ scheme of work which was developed by Sue Cave, an experienced specialist Primary Languages teacher and trainer who is passionate about the teaching of languages in primary schools.

Cave Languages aims to teach our children to:

• Develop resilience in language learning as well as enjoyment of it.
• Acquire language learning strategies for memorisation and retrieval as well as for listening, reading and understanding.
• Develop the skill of how to use bi-lingual dictionary to decode unfamiliar language
• Be able to manipulate language to speak or write sentences creatively using prior knowledge of grammar and key features; with and without a dictionary.
• Have a sound grasp of the key sounds of the French language and their corresponding graphemes and be able to apply this knowledge when speaking, listening and reading aloud.
• Recognise some of the language patterns of French and how these differ or are similar to English
• Appreciate and be able to copy the sound of the language at text level through songs, stories and rhymes.
• Have a deeper understanding of cultural differences and similarities.
• Demonstrate substantial progress in learning French and work towards or meet the targets of the KS2 Programme of Study for Languages.

More information about this scheme of work can be found on this website: Home – Cave Languages: advice, training courses and support for the delivery of languages in primary schools

All of KS2 are taught by their class teachers who are trained and supported by the French subject leader.

The French long term plan for KS2 can be found here.

The French End of Year Expectations can be found here.

The French skill progression can be found here.