Intent

French provides pupils with an opportunity to widen their outlook on the world. At Thomas Jones, we aim for a high quality French curriculum which equips pupils to become confident and competent communicators and which inspires pupils to explore the world around them with greater curiosity and an open mind.

High quality French provision not only equips pupils with the skills they require to communicate confidently with others, but also provides a vehicle through which children are enabled to learn more about the world around them including different cultures. Language learning supports children’s understanding of identity and their place in the world. In addition, learning key grammatical concepts in French not only serves to improve pupils’ communication in that language but also strengthens their understanding of English grammar and sentence structure. Whilst French is almost unique within the school for its subject-specific approach, staff and pupils are encouraged to incorporate elements of French into their daily routines, such as talking about the weather, taking the register or when greeting each other. This then serves to embed pupils’ understanding of the language further and its importance as a means of communication.

Our French curriculum incorporates fundamental French subject knowledge and language learning skills and affords pupils a firm foundation in the subject to develop their studies when they transition to secondary school, no matter which language they study. The following principles, drawn from the 2014 National Curriculum, drive French here at Thomas Jones:

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures.
High-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.
Pupils should be enabled to express their ideas and thoughts in another language, and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing.
Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

As with all subjects at Thomas Jones, the learning of key vocabulary is the cornerstone of the French teaching that takes place throughout Key Stage 2. As pupils progress through our school, they are taught the necessary skills to enable them to move from understanding key vocabulary within the context of a unit, to being able to use and manipulate this language across different units and to understand key grammatical concepts.