KS3 & KS4 French

As our curriculum sequencing and pedagogical approach is consistent across all languages and key stages, this introduction provides examples from within our French (key stages 2-4), Spanish (key stages 2-4) and German (key stages 3 & 4) curricula.

Aims and purpose

What are the aims and purpose of our curriculum?

This curriculum enables learners to manipulate language so that they can build their own meaning, sentences and structures independently. It develops pupils to be effective communicators who can confidently use their knowledge and skills to become global citizens and lifelong linguists, with a clear understanding of language and culture.

Oak curriculum principles

What overarching curriculum principles inform the design of our curriculum?

Knowledge and vocabulary rich

This principle recognises the important role that knowledge, and vocabulary as a particularly important type of knowledge, plays in learning. Our curriculum has a focus on the most important knowledge in languages: vocabulary, phonics and grammar. These are learned and applied through practice in listening, speaking, reading and writing. We identify and map the most frequently used vocabulary across the curriculum, both in terms of the introduction of new vocabulary and the necessary repetition of vocabulary that has gone before. Keywords are signalled in bold in our lesson materials to indicate their importance. They include three types:

• sound-symbol correspondences (the relationship between sounds and letters) which enable pupils to pronounce new vocabulary and recognise their written form, for example [ce]
• grammatical terms to unlock the understanding of grammar concepts, for example ‘grammatical gender’
• function words which unlock the ability to build phrases and sentences, for example the Spanish conjunction ‘y’ meaning ‘and’

Sequenced and coherent

A careful and purposeful sequencing of our curriculum content underpins the design of our curriculum, ensuring that pupils are able to build on and make links with existing knowledge. We introduce, for example, the essential verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ early in the curriculum as pupils will use them frequently so that by the time they come to talk about the past, these verbs are firmly grasped and can be applied effectively as the auxiliary verbs that form the perfect tense. Attention is paid to vertical coherence via threads, which map the developments of concepts over time, for example in French, the thread ‘nouns and determiners’ begins with singular 'avoir' nouns in year 3, building to using the partitive article and the preposition ‘de’ at secondary.

Evidence-informed

Our evidence-informed approach enables the rigorous application of research outcomes, science of learning and impactful best practice both in education in general and at a subject specific level. For example, the design of our resources reflects findings from Sweller’s cognitive load theory and Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning whilst our lesson design draws on Rosenshine’s principles of instruction. We also draw on findings from research organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). At the subject level our vocabulary choices are informed by both frequency and rates of learning. Phonics sequencing follows an evidence-informed 'bang for your buck' principle of frequency and difficulty. Our approach to teaching grammar aligns with evidence that:

• explicit teaching closes the gap for less naturally analytical learners;
• providing a succinct explanation before practising a grammar feature is more effective than asking pupils to spot patterns;
• bespoke listening and reading activities contrasting pairs of grammar features and making their processing essential to task completion lead to stronger learning than traditional comprehension tasks.

Flexible

Our flexible approach enables schools to use our resources in a way that fits their context and meets the varying needs of teachers and their pupils. Our curriculum can be used in its entirety or units can be selected to complement existing curricula. Our resources are adaptable so that, for example, teachers can edit or add checks for understanding, adapt practice tasks to better reflect the prior knowledge of their pupils, substitute vocabulary with words more relevant to their own pupils, or add local context such as information about a partner school in another country. At key stage 4 teachers and pupils can select a pathway aligned to the most frequently used exam board specifications for GCSE French, German and Spanish: AQA or Edexcel.

Diverse

Our commitment to breadth and diversity in content, language, texts and media can be seen throughout the curriculum, for example in the group of diverse school age characters that feature in our resources. To model the diverse populations that share a common language in Spanish lessons pupils meet characters from South America as well as Europe, and in French lessons they meet characters from North Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Our German curriculum includes characters with Turkish and Polish heritage. We also teach the differences in how languages are spoken. For example, the pronunciation of [z] and [c] in different Spanish-speaking countries.

Accessible

Our curriculum is intentionally designed to facilitate high-quality teaching as a powerful lever to support pupils with SEND. Aligned with EEF guidance, our resources have a focus on clear explanations, modelling and frequent checks for understanding, with guided and independent practice. Lessons are chunked into learning cycles and redundant images and information are minimised to manage cognitive load. We have removed reference to year groups in our resources so that they can be used when pupils are ready, regardless of their age. Our resources are purposefully created to be accessible, for example by using accessible fonts and colours with good contrast. In our languages lessons we revisit vocabulary that has been previously taught and use it in different contexts to help embed it. Where appropriate, we use meaningful images to accompany vocabulary to support pupils' learning and recall.

Oak subject principles

What subject specific principles inform the design of our curriculum?

Focuses on the knowledge and skills specific to languages, including:

• Phonics (which sound spelling correspondences); vocabulary (which words); grammar (which grammar points);

• Listening, speaking, reading and writing, the use of reference materials and the integration of these skills where appropriate.

We teach phonics explicitly throughout our resources. In our learning cycles we often explain and practise sound-symbol correspondences. Both new and revisited vocabulary are listed in each lesson so the teacher can see which words are taught and when. We also carefully map grammar points to ensure regular revisiting, supported by the designation of explicit grammatical threads such as ‘Adjectives’ ‘Verb: to be being’ and ‘Nouns and determiners’. Pupils practise language in each of the four skills and often use two or more skills together in a task. We teach pupils the knowledge and skills to use reference materials to support their independent learning.

Knowledge selection is based on frequency which also enables cultural enrichment and the development of a personal repertoire.

Our selection of vocabulary draws on the most frequently used words in each language. Where there are lower frequency words included they are necessary for context and are often related to the cultural context of lessons; for example in French ‘le fromage’ and ‘le pain’ which are less frequently used but are useful for cultural context. This ensures pupils have a personal repertoire which will enable them to communicate what they want to say. Likewise, we focus on the most useful grammar points, for example in German the verbs ‘sein’ and ‘haben’ are taught early in key stage 3 and revisited regularly.

Applies our sequencing principle through frequent and planned recombination and application of phonics, vocabulary and grammar in listening, speaking, reading, and writing to first develop understanding and then make independent communication possible in new and authentic contexts.

We revisit and apply vocabulary so that pupils can use it across contexts and with a range of grammatical features. For example, by key stage 4 pupils can use the near future tense to talk about their weekend plans or to discuss what time someone will wake up tomorrow morning. We recognise that we can’t predict what pupils will want to say so we give them the tools to build their own sentences.

Develops pupils who have cultural curiosity and are inspired and equipped to communicate across the wider world.

Our curriculum has a rich cultural content across all three languages, inspiring pupils to engage in the world as global citizens. Our French curriculum includes learning about francophone cities across Europe, Canada and Africa; pupils study poets such as René Philombe and Jacques Prévert and they are given the knowledge to engage with historical contexts such as the history of concorde, the French revolution, and the French resistance. In our German curriculum, they learn about both German contexts (the history of Berlin, the Black Forest, Bavaria, the Black Forest, Oktoberfest) and places beyond Germany (Vienna, Switzerland and Namibia); pupils study poetry from Goethe and Adel Karasholi and the hiker Christine Thürmer. The Spanish curriculum explores places across Spain and Central and South America; pupils study authors and poets such as Antonio Machado and Arturo Pérez Reverte, and the Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchú.

National curriculum

How does our curriculum reflect the aims & purpose of the national curriculum?

There are four aims of the national curriculum. The first is that all pupils should ‘understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources’. Our curriculum focuses on the most frequently used words so that pupils will understand the majority of vocabulary they encounter. They are also taught how to use reference resources to unlock new words. A diverse variety of texts including poetry are used in the curriculum to ensure that pupils are exposed to authentic material to read and understand. Audio files, recorded by native speakers, are provided so that pupils hear authentic language.

The second aim is that all pupils should ‘speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation’. Pupils are taught the sound-symbol correspondences so that they can pronounce the language confidently. Speaking activities give pupils regular opportunities to use language to communicate with increasing fluency. The ‘Questions’ thread, through which pupils are challenged to ask and answer questions, maps the progression of this important knowledge across the curriculum. Audio files of native speakers can be used by teachers and pupils to improve their spoken accuracy.

The third aim is that all pupils ‘can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt’. Our curriculum offers regular opportunities to write. In the early stages pupils write shorter texts with a limited range increasing to writing at length using the wide range of grammatical structures mastered over time. For example, in early key stage 2 pupils might write a short list of things they are taking on a trip, through to key stage 4, where pupils write an extending piece discussing stereotypes

The final aim is that all pupils ‘discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied'. Pupils encounter writing throughout the curriculum in various forms, from short bespoke sentences to poetry and literary texts, from writers such as Jacques Prévert, Goethe and Arturo Pérez Reverte.

Curriculum delivery

What teaching time does our curriculum require?

Our curricula for key stages 1-3 are designed for 36 weeks of curriculum time across the school year, leaving time for other activities both within and beyond the curriculum such as assessments or school trips. At key stage 4, year 10 also has 36 weeks of curriculum time, but year 11 has only 24 weeks (approximately 2 terms) to recognise that schools will not be teaching new content in the run up to the GCSE exams.

At key stage 2, our French and Spanish curricula are both designed to teach one weekly lesson, approximately 30 minutes long. At key stage 3 our French, Spanish and German curricula each provide two lessons a week lasting 50 minutes to an hour. We understand that exact time dedicated to languages can vary greatly between schools due to differences in curriculum planning, resource allocation and school-specific priorities. Therefore we fully expect and encourage teachers to adapt our curriculum and resources to best suit their needs and available curriculum time.

Curriculum coherence

What are 'threads'?

We use threads to signpost groups of units that link to one another, that together build a common body of knowledge over time. We use the term thread, rather than vertical concepts, themes or big ideas, because it helps to bring to mind the visual concept of a thread weaving through the curriculum.

Our languages threads weave through both our primary and secondary curricula with a tweak to the name of a couple of threads and an additional four threads at secondary to reflect the added complexity of the language. Our threads are:

• Adjectives
• Cultural spotlight
• Derivational word patterns (secondary only)
• Listen and respond to songs and rhymes (primary) / Listen and respond to longer passages (secondary)
• Negation
• Nouns and determiners
• Questions
• Read and respond to texts
• The future and conditional (secondary only)
• The past (secondary only)
• The present
• Use reference sources
• Verb: to have, having
• Verb: to be, being
• Word order (secondary only)
• Written production (primary) / Extend written and spoken production (secondary)

Our threads have been chosen to help teachers and pupils navigate the rich tapestry of language teaching and learning. There are different types of threads in languages. Some of the threads relate to key grammatical concepts, such as the thread ‘Adjectives’, which maps how pupils’ learning about develop knowledge and understanding of adjectives over time. Other threads, such as ‘Read and respond to texts’, map the progression of pupils’ use of language in reading. The thread ‘Use of reference materials’ maps how pupils will learn to personalise their use of the language. The thread ‘Cultural spotlight’ highlights units which focus specifically on the people and culture of the countries where the language is spoken. Consistent threads across our primary and secondary curricula can enable more effective transition, helping pupils to bridge their knowledge and understanding from primary to secondary.

Recommendations from subject specific reports

How does our curriculum address and enact recommendations from subject specific reports (e.g. EEF guidance reports & Ofsted Research Review)?

As identified by the 2016 MFL Pedagogy Review commissioned by the Teaching Schools Council and the recent Ofsted subject report for Modern Foreign Languages, our curriculum focuses on sequenced and integrated progression in the fundamental knowledge for beginner language learners: phonics, vocabulary, and grammar. As recommended, we prioritise clarity and explicitness in the presentation of new knowledge and we select vocabulary for frequency and make sure that our teaching materials contain mostly familiar words in bespoke, adapted and authentic texts.

Subject-specific needs

How does our curriculum deal with elements that arise from the specific needs of the subject?

What pedagogical approach do our languages curricula embrace?

Our curriculum is based on the principles of Language-Driven Pedagogy (LDP). These principles are language-led rather than topic-led, knowledge rich and practise based. There are three language knowledge strands: phonics, vocabulary and grammar which underpin the development of confident communication, cultural understanding and creative use of language.

How can spoken language be used when teaching the curriculum?

Hearing people speaking the language is an important part of learning languages. Our curriculum resources include audio files, hosted on the media page for each lesson, that can be played to pupils in lessons and transcripts, housed in lesson additional materials, for teachers who wish to read out the language themselves. Audio files for a lesson are collected together on the lesson media page rather than embedded links in slides so that they can be viewed together in one place and used flexibly (and for the practical reason that embedded audio links would make the slides too big to download).

How are phonics taught in the curriculum?

In our lessons at key stage 2 and early key stage 3 there is a distinct phonics learning cycle focussed on a new sound-symbol correspondence. This is signposted through an additional phonic specific learning outcome. For example, the key stage 2 lesson ‘A school trip: gender, 'un', 'una', and 'tengo'’ has two learning outcomes: ‘I can use 'tengo', 'un' and 'una' with nouns to say what belongings I have’ and the phonics learning outcome, ‘I can recognise and pronounce [ce]’.

Why is there no curriculum for key stage 1?

Our primary curriculum begins at key stage 2 rather than key stage 1 because that is when the statutory programme of study begins in key stage 2.