Intent
In the Modern Foreign Languages Department, we endeavour to create global citizens who have a sense of the world beyond their own context. We aim to liberate our students from insularity by encouraging awareness of local, national and global concepts through our Curriculum. By developing the aspirations of our students, we can inspire curiosity through Modern Foreign Language learning, developing confident communicators ready for the ever-increasing multicultural world they will be living in. Through the MFL Curriculum, we create opportunities for students to explore language learning beyond the classroom introducing cultural experiences such as off site visits and pen pals. At both KS3 and KS4, we begin the courses with Personal Identity and Family and Relationships, as with all language acquisition communicating what students intrinsically know, helps to build resilient learners, and helps to improve the confidence of our students. Our curriculum promotes cooperation, aspiration and communication on all levels allowing for inclusivity in our classrooms for all learners.
Implementation
At the Academy we deliver French and Spanish at both KS3 and KS4. Students will progressively acquire and apply a wealth of linguistic knowledge, such as vocabulary and grammatical skills in order to ensure that, their domains of knowledge are built upon, therefore improving the confidence of all linguists. Staff who are highly trained and passionate about languages teach all of our classes; this is how we ensure that students are able to access a high quality modern foreign languages curriculum with the design of our curriculum allowing inclusivity for all students.
Throughout KS3, our curriculum focuses on the whole student by including topics such as, Personal Identity, My Education and A Balanced Lifestyle. We deliver all four key language skills throughout this curriculum, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, encouraging students to explore a wide range of methods to communicate confidently. This also improves the social skills of our students, allows them to develop a sense of the world beyond their own context, and encourages an awareness of national and global concepts.
All of the topics at KS3 directly lead into our KS4 curriculum to ensure that our students are actively building upon their domains of knowledge by consistently applying key concepts. At KS4, we begin with the topic of Family and Relationships, and explore the idea of non – traditional families and make links to life in Modern Britain. The nature of learning a language means that sometimes our students may find it challenging, however we endeavour to equip our linguists with the problem-solving resilience required to achieve their full potential.
Impact
Students will steadily build upon their domains of knowledge as they progress in their Modern Foreign Language journey as previous language will be recycled, reused and revisited. We do this by ensuring that each subsequent lesson is progressive and delivered by a language expert, this in itself directs, drives and guarantees a wealth of learning and challenge. Students will complete end of topic assessments, and end of year assessments in both key stages, to ensure that assessment information not only shows that students have a sustained depth of knowledge for a particular topic but also can recall prior domains of knowledge from their language toolkit. To support our students in their language-learning journey, we work tirelessly, both in directed learning time and outside of the classroom. Through Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing our curriculum gives students the ability to take the next steps in to higher education and employment by developing their life skills. We hope that our subjects allow students to become effective communicators in not just their first language, but in more, to allow them to connect with this ever growing, multi-cultural world we are living in today.
Progression Map
Please view the additional documents in school:
- Curriculum on a page
- Knowledge Organisers
