Curriculum Information

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Modern Foreign Language

MFL- Statement of Curriculum Intent

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Our mission is to provide outstanding teaching and a bespoke engaging MFL curriculum that is tailored to every child’s individual needs. We believe that every child, whatever their background can make good progress and reach their true potential. We aim to support all pupils through the means of a curriculum that is innovative, exciting, that broadens students’ horizons, opens pupils’ minds, and opens the doors of opportunity. Our vision is to be at the forefront of MFL pedagogy and for every student to enjoy and see the value in studying languages.

MFL and the School’s Values

The ‘CARES’ values at Hastings are at the heart of our curriculum:�

• Community – Being able to communicate effectively is one of the most important life skills, amongst the most demanded by employers, and vital for building communities. Pupils will improve their confidence in communicating in a foreign language as well as their native language through a variety of engaging listening, speaking, reading and writing activities. They will also develop their tolerance and worldview through the exploration of Francophone cultures.
• Ambitious – Pupils understand that learning a language is a challenge – they need to stay positive and aim high. Our “teach from the top” curriculum is ambitious and aims to push all students to achieve their potential. Pupils can also push themselves by completing APL (Aller Plus Loin – Take It Further) tasks in lessons and through super-curricular ambition projects outside of lessons.
• Responsibility– We’re not only French. Through our curriculum and teaching techniques we teach pupils how to take responsibility for their own progress and become independent learners. We do lessons on dictionary skills, metacognition and how to revise, as well as promoting independence through our use of Vocabulary Knowledge Organisers (VKOs) and our C3B4Me policy.
• Enriching– In lessons, we aim to support our students to understand other countries and cultures and provide them with a range of engaging and enriching opportunities that stimulate cultural knowledge whilst developing language skills. We also provide a variety of extracurricular opportunities, such as trips.
• Self-development – Pupils take responsibility for their own learning by using self-assessment or personalised learning checklists to reflect independently on their progress and areas for self-development. They have lots of opportunities to develop themselves and we’re teaching them a variety of skills which serve them throughout their life. We reward effort, as well as achievement, through our use of étoiles ★

National Curriculum – KS3

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 7

Unit 1: C’est parti !

All students are coming from different feeder skills and different levels of knowledge, so this unit aims to build student confidence by going over some basics, whilst introducing key skills such as phonics.

• Running map dictation – Getting to know France
• Literal translation – Bilingual dictionary skills
• Alphabet and spelling
• Phonics – overview of key sounds
• Greetings
• Numbers 1-31
• Days and months
• Colours
• Classroom language

“Learning is not a destination, but a journey” – Jean Brunet

Before getting to us in Year 7, we work closely with our main feeder schools and go in ourselves to introduce pupils to the idea of La Francophonie and all incoming Year 7 students have the opportunity to complete a summer ambition project, doing independent research on a Francophone country (not France).

Unit 2: C’est moi !

In this unit, students learn to talk about themselves.

• Name
• Age and birthday (recap numbers and months)
• Nationality (school nationalities)
• Personality and connectives
• Hair colour and styles
• Eyes and other physical features
• Family members/who you live with
• Pets
• Likes and dislikes
• Film study: Petit Nicolas
• Christmas in France

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Unit 3: Mes modèles

In this unit, students learn to talk about other people. This builds and expands on the vocab and structures they learnt in unit 2.

• Francophone celebrities
• Name
• Numbers 1-100
• Age and birthday
• Hair, eyes and size
• Nationality (Francophone nationalities)
• Personality
• Jobs and interests.
• Film study: Ratatouille
• Green CARES Day: �David Attenborough �and endangered animals

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 7

Unit 4: Au collège

In this unit, students learn to talk about their school life at school. They will revisit key verbs and vocab from previous units, such as numbers, and further develop their use of opinions.�

• Difference between French and UK schools
• School facilities
• Subjects and days of the week
• Opinions of subjects
• Justifications
• In my bag/in my pencil case
• Describing a classroom (describing a photo)
• Daily routine
• Time
• Uniform

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Example super curricular task

Year 7 Homework�

Homework is set on online learning platforms – assignments will review and practise recent learning. There is also a suite of super curricular tasks available.

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 8

Unit 1: Mon Monde

In this unit, students learn to talk about their home and the cinema. We will retrieve and build on Year 7 knowledge and introduce the past tense.�

• Where you live and types of house
• Opinions of where you live
• Rooms in a house
• Furniture
• Prepositions
• Chores and pocket money
• Film genres
• Recent cinema trip
• Film reviews
• Film study: Les Choristes

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“Learning a foreign language is like going up a level in life so you get to interact with more characters from different countries.”

Unit 2: Ma vie saine

In this unit, students learn to talk about healthy lifestyles including food, exercise, well-being and reading. We will introduce the future tense.

• Francophone lifestyles
• Body parts
• Injuries and ailments
• Food and drink
• Eating out
• Murder mystery – past tense recap
• Keeping fit
• Reading
• Giving advice for a healthy life
• Future resolutions
• Describing a photo
• Green CARES Day: �French food sustainability�and the imperative

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Unit 3: Le sport

In this unit, students learn to talk about sports and hobbies, including music. We will use three time frames for the first time.�

• Popular sports in France
• Sports
• Sports places and clubs
• Weather and time phrases
• Sports clothing
• Sportspeople
• Recent sporting event
• Hobbies
• Music
• A future music event

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 8

Example super curricular task

Year 8 Homework�

Homework is set on online learning platforms – assignments will review and practise recent learning. There is also a suite of super curricular tasks available.

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 9

Unit 1: Allons-y !

In this unit, students learn to talk about holidays in three time frames, introducing the conditional tense.�

• La Francophone and holidays
• Countries and places
• Transport
• Accommodation
• Holiday activities
• Réunion Island and Extreme weather
• Ideal holiday
• Describing a photo
• Film study: Mr Bean’s Holiday
• Recent holiday

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“A different language is a different vision of life.” - Federico Fellini

Unit 2: En ville

In this unit, students learn to talk about their town and the environment.�

• Francophone capitals
• Types of town and cardinal points
• Places in town
• Shops
• What you can do in town
• Recent trip to town
• Future trip to town
• Virtual tour of Paris
• Directions
• Problems in town
• Environmental problems and solutions
• Green CARES Day: �Eau de Paris – Zac Efron’s�Down to Earth

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Unit 3: On fait la fête !

In this unit, students learn to talk about a variety of festivals and how they are celebrated.�

• Francophone festivals
• Favourite festival
• Traditional clothing
• Food traditions
• La fête nationale
• A recent Christmas
• Mardi Gras / Carnival - future

MFL – Curriculum Map – Year 9

Example super curricular task

Year 9 Homework�

Homework is set on online learning platforms – assignments will review and practise recent learning. There is also a suite of super curricular tasks available.

Assessment – Key Stage 3

The department uses a range of formative and summative assessment strategies at KS3:

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• Everyday formative assessments e.g. listening activities, reading activities, vocabulary tests, and translation exercises: These activities are self/peer-assessed by students in lessons using purple pen. The teacher provides answers on the board and pupils are encouraged to reflect on what went well (WWW) and set personal targets (EBI). �
• Knowledge checks/End of unit assessment: These are summative assessments which assess learning part way through a unit or at the end. It allows teachers to identify common misconceptions and address these before end of unit assessments, and for students to track their progress across a topic.

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Summative assessments are made up of GCSE-style questions and skills with KS3 content in order to prepare students for KS4. All four skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) will be assessed at least once across a topic.

Assessment – Key Stage 3

https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/languages/gcse/french-8652

GCSE French

8652

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Teaching from September 2024

First exams: June 2026

KS4 - GCSE French – Course content

The GCSE course is split into 3 themes. �Each theme is divided into 3 topics.

Each topic has already been touched on at KS3 allowing us to go into great depth at KS4.

KS4 - GCSE French – Assessment

There are 4 exams at the end of Y11.

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Each exam is worth 25%.

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French is a tiered and pupils will be entered for either Foundation (Grades 1-5) or Higher (Grades 4-9) for all exams.�

All 3 themes will be assessed in each exam.

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GCSE-style exams will be used to assess student progress across Y10 and Y11 for both in-class assessments and mock exams.

KS4 - GCSE French – Homework

Homework at GCSE is varied. Potential homework tasks include:�

• Activities on online learning platforms �
• Grammar tasks�
• Vocab learning�
• Writing tasks�
• Acting on feedback/improving work�
• Preparation for speaking exam�
• Revision

Enrichment opportunities

• Super-curricular Ambition Projects for every topic to take learning further. Choose from language, careers, food and cross-curricular options.
• KS4 intervention and revision sessions – lunchtime/after school.
• Class Charts/Google Classroom – a variety of links and resources are shared with students for learning and revision purposes, as well as link to relevant cultural events.
• Trips/Enrichment week – we aim to provide opportunities to practise languages in a real-world context through trips where possible. In previous years, we have taken students to Paris to experience its monuments, food and culture.
• European Day of Languages
• GCHQ National Language Competition
• UK Linguistics Olympiad

Careers / Destinations

Thanks to our ambitious curriculum, students feel well prepared if they choose to pursue languages at A-Level

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“I just wanted to say thank you so much for making French enjoyable and giving me the confidence to take it at A Level. I definitely have a head start with conjugating and tenses. Even people in my class who got [grade] nines are struggling with just conjugating in the present tense, so I'm really grateful we took time to learn those basics because it's paying off now.” – FR, Hastings alumni 2024.

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Throughout KS3 and KS4, students are introduced to a variety of careers in lessons, in VKOs and through super-curricular tasks. The ability to speak another language is useful for any field of employment, but we also educate students on the valuable employability and life skills that they are acquiring by studying a language.