French Intent Statement

At SMSJ, we teach French as our modern foreign language. It is our intent that learners of all abilities access interactive and engaging French lessons. Our French specialists from Junior Jam come into school to teach and deliver quality French lessons every week. Our aim is to ensure that listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar are incorporated into each lesson. In addition, acquiring a new language provides an opening to learning about other cultures and deepening their understanding of the world. We strive to equip our children with the foundations of a new language which can be built on in their future educational journey or should they choose to study and work in other countries.

Our aims and objectives for learning a foreign language in our school are to ensure that all pupils in Key Stage 2:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources;
• 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 the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation;
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt;
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

At SMSJ, most of our children are already at least bilingual.  Most have English as an additional language and therefore, a great emphasis is placed on language development and oracy in English.  The same can be said of our teaching of French.

Language Development and Understanding of Key French Vocabulary

Learning environments are language rich, providing key words, definitions, explanations and pictures of words and phrases used in French to build up on prior learning. In addition, the Junior Jam scheme of work allows for all learners to practise their vocabulary with short bursts of writing opportunities in order to demonstrate their understanding of the content taught.

Oracy Development

In every French lesson, opportunities are provided for children to practise their French words aloud in a variety of ways - such as through fun games, chanting, singing French songs and through roleplay, whereby children exchange conversations in French. Furthermore, we encourage recording a selection of oral conversations throughout the lesson so that learners can listen to and evaluate their learning by improving their French pronunciation and grammar skills. 

Learning Experiences

In order to broaden children’s life experiences, we provide children with quality lessons that follow the scheme of work for children to develop all skills. In Autumn, we will be hosting a SMSJ French Cafe. All KS2 chn will have the opportunity to visit the cafe with a passport, experience reading a French menu as well as ordering food in French. 

French and our School Vision

At SMSJ, we firmly believe that, ‘With God, all things are possible’ (Matthew 19:26), and we are dedicated to ensuring that all learners live and breathe this throughout their French lessons. We nurture all children by providing them with the tools and resources to become independent learners and to trial the unknown. We inspire them with exciting opportunities to build their confidence when learning a new language. All of the learners at SMSJ, achieve in their own way, hence the balance of spoken and written language which should lay the foundations for further foreign language teaching at Key Stage 3. Teaching languages at SMSJ is led with passion and commitment as we believe that all learners deserve the very best foreign language education.