At Thomas Eaton Primary Academy, we teach French across Key Stage 2 using the "Kapow" scheme of work to support the teaching and learning of French. This provides clear progression for the development of speaking, listening and vocabulary acquisition. In order to teach Languages in a memorable way, we use a variety of resources, including art and role play, to enhance the learning opportunities for all pupils.
 

We aim to instil a love of language learning and an awareness of other cultures. We want the children to develop the confidence to communicate in French for practical purposes, using both written and spoken French. We aim to give pupils a foundation for language learning that encourages and enables them to apply their skills to learning further languages in the future. Kapow Primary’s French scheme of work supports pupils to meet the national curriculum end of Key stage 2 attainment targets (there are no Key stage 1 attainment targets for Languages).  

Kapow’s French scheme of work has been designed as a spiral curriculum with the following key principles in mind:

• Cyclical: Pupils revisit key vocabulary and grammar concepts again and again.
• Increasing depth: Each time vocabulary or grammar learning is revisited, it is covered with greater depth.
• Prior knowledge: Upon returning to each area, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build on previous foundations, rather than starting again.

To ensure that the children are fluent in ‘the basics’, each year group will be focusing on the same objectives this year. These will be covered by the following units:

French Greetings

In this initial unit, the children will learn how to introduce themselves and use the appropriate greeting to say; 'hello', 'goodbye' and 'goodnight' depending on what time of day it is. They will also learn to ask and answer the question, 'How are you feeling?'

French adjectives of colour, size and shape

In their next unit, the children will be describing shapes using adjectives of colour and size and learning the position of adjectives relative to the noun (as this is different in the French language). They will also be learning about cognates and near cognates; discussing the similarities between some French and English words, as well as practising their language skills and developing confidence through games. 

French playground games - numbers, age and time

This unit teaches the children how to count in French from one to twelve and developing their recognition of the written number words. They will learn how to ask how old someone is and answer the same question, which will enable them to compare sentence structure in both French and English. The learning from this unit will be consolidated by practising all the vocabulary by playing some traditional French games. 

In a French classroom

This unit introduces the imperative mood with classroom commands and the concept of noun gender, which determines the form of the indefinite article to be used. The children learn to respond to and and give simple instructions, learn and use vocabulary for items commonly found in a school bag, and begin to build simple sentences using. 'I have a ...' and 'I don't have a ...' and the simple conjunctions, 'and' and 'but'. By the end of the unit, the children use all they have learned, including rules on adjective position, to write short descriptions in French and to give a presentation on what is in their school bag.