MFL

COGNITION CURRICULUM

The Cognition Curriculum is highlighted at several points in the Mid-Term Plans. For example, ambassadors in both French and Spanish in all year groups work together in Reciprocation with key students to support them in their learning.

Resilience is taught by giving meaningful and purposeful feedback using official mark schemes, especially on Writing and Speaking tasks in KS4. Students are familiar with exam requirements and receive boosters in exam techniques. They reflect on their areas of improvement and work using their resources to improve their language skills. This can be seen in personalised homework, PLCS, groups on Teams, challenges or open-ended questions for writing tasks.

At Key Stage 3 students are regularly taught Resourcefulness using ‘BBBB’ when they are dealing with activities which consolidate their learning or stretch them to the next level of the AVA Taxonomy. All MFL classrooms are up to date with helpful displays and resources. At Key Stage 4, students become more independent learners and have access to an individual resources folder with support materials such as vocabulary booklets, grammar handouts, checklists, writing support, idioms, complex structures as well as differentiated work for low and high ability divided per topic and/or skill.

Students are expected to Reflect on their progress and self-assess their understanding both at the Start of Lesson and the End of Lesson. The AVA taxonomy applied to MFL is embedded in every lesson, activities and displays. Learning objective and steps to success are discussed with students and revisited throughout the lesson. An example at Key Stage 3 is the completion of checklists of knowledge. Key Stage 4 students RAG their individual PLCS.

Recall is taught explicitly through the provision of Interleaving lessons in KS4 during which teachers re-visit key content previously covered as well as retrieval pop up questions. In KS3, recalling is taught through games to drill vocabulary and grammar, competitions, quizzes and homework. We follow a systematic approach in our starters where the first lesson focuses on vocabulary recalling, the second on grammar and the third one on an output skill. Mnemonic techniques such as TORTILLA, DOCTOR, PLACE or WEIRDO help students remember long term.

CULTURE CURRICULUM

The Culture Curriculum is highlighted at several points in the Mid-Term Plans. As a skill itself in any language, students practice Reading through authentic texts in their MFL lessons. These texts vary from different registers, abilities, authors, topics and styles. Students then work on comprehension activities, which normally leads to writing tasks where they can apply ideas.  

Topics are Enriched by sharing with students a real-world application of the languages they are learning. This can be seen in the lessons when students are asked to connect the content and skills learnt to the Careers they can opt for in the future. We also coordinate a Pen Pal project in KS3 and 4 with some schools in Spain and France.

We are constantly linking our subjects to careers and therefore we have invited some visitors to talk to our learners about future jobs such as Technical Analyst at Sky.

As part of our Extra-Curricular provision, we offer:

• Homework club twice a week to offer students support and the opportunity to secure and stretch their knowledge and it is great support for PP and SEND students.
• Year 9 and 10 after school club where students explore and develop their cultural knowledge about Hispanic and French speaking countries through authentic material such as newspapers, documentaries and movies. Students reflect on current affairs and update a blog in the target language.
• Year 11 skills booster after school club where students revise and stretch specific language skills.
• We have organised different trips abroad such as Barcelona 2019, Madrid 2022 and Andalucia 2023. The aim of these trips was to develop students´ linguistic knowledge and gain lifelong skills such as friendship and sharing.
• We celebrate the European Day of Languages.

As Collective worship, we have involved families and community in the students´ learning. For example, when KS4 students work on the topic of food, we have asked them to cook some Spanish/French dishes and bring them to school. we have also liaised with other departments in school such as the PE department to play authentic games from France and Spain.

As for Character education, all our classes are full of students from different backgrounds and all of them feel welcome and valued. This has been great to promote discussions on cultural differences and gaining knowledge from this.

 CORE CURRICULUM

All students from year 3 to year 8 are taught 2 languages (with the small exception of some students attending Literacy interventions). 

At Key Stage 2, we follow the National Curriculum. Basic introduction to phonics, grammar and sentences. The vocabulary is carefully chosen to match the KS3 curriculum.

At Key Stage 3, we follow the National Curriculum using Claro and VIVA programme of study for Spanish and Allez for French. There is an introduction and development of the three main time frames (required for a GCSE pass level) and topics linked to GCSE SOWs in order to establish a strong foundation.

At Key stage 4 students cover AQA Spanish and/or French. We follow a spiral program in which students review what was learnt during KS3 with a different level challenged and following the AQA programme. Interleaving sessions are done.

Midterm and long terms plans are discussed as a team. We select the content to comply with the learning objectives and steps to success of each lesson. There is a balance between listening, reading, writing, speaking, translation (direct and inverse), grammar and vocabulary activities.