Modern Foreign Languages (Key Stage 3)

Intent

We aim to develop life-long language learners by developing students’ confidence and communication skills. Once you have studied one language it is much simpler to learn another; students should be encouraged to apply the linguistic knowledge taught at school and apply it to another language of interest later in life. Language learners develop skills in communication, listening, adaptability, resilience, problem solving and analytical thinking. The skills learnt through their studies prepare students for the world of work. We provide opportunities for students to use these skills in real-world situations via trips abroad to the country of study where they can use their language skills and respond to speakers of that language. The study of modern foreign languages should be accessible to all students regardless of background or academic ability as all students should be provided with an opportunity to develop their cultural capital as well as their curiosity of such a rich and diverse world.

Year 7

Focus

Autumn	Spring	Summer
Students learn to talk about themselves and learn basic vocabulary and questions. The study of phonics underpins this; they will describe themselves, family members, pets and introduce themselves in French/ Spanish. Irregular verb ‘tener, soy and estar’ will be studied. This is present throughout the KS3 and KS4 course, therefore mastery is essential.	Students will look at activities they do in their free time. They will also be introduced to basic opinions and will see the present tense for the first time. Focus will be on the 1^st-3^rd person singular: I, you, he/she. Could introduce full verb paradigm using we, you, all and they. This will be seen again in Y9 &10, so a solid foundation is needed.	Students will begin to look at describing where they live. This includes describing their house, their local area and their region. The present tense is still featured throughout, and some irregular verbs will be seen. This will be seen again in Y10, so a solid foundation is needed.

Year 8

Focus

Autumn	Spring	Summer
Students look at technology, music and being online. This also includes gaming. The first term reinforces the present tense from last year and looks more at infinitive phrases with a particular focus on the use of opinions.	Students will study the past tense – both regular and irregular verbs – ‘ir and ser.’ The topic of study is holidays which includes tourism, food, festivals and customs.’ This will be seen again in Y10, so recognition of key vocabulary here is important.	Students will look at school life. This includes school subjects, opinions on subjects and teachers as well as food and activities they do during the school day. This topic is taught in the present tense but will look back at describing a school day in the past. Students will see this again in Y11 and so mastery here is important.

Year 9

Focus

Autumn	Spring	Summer
Students will look at leading a healthy lifestyle. This includes revisiting sport, food and activities. Students will have embedded this core knowledge in Y7 and will therefore be familiar with a lot of the vocabulary. Both the past and present tense will be used so that students can aim for GCSE targets. *Y9 French will study my town and region along with infinitive phrases using modal verbs.	Students will study jobs and future plans. This is where they will see the near future tense for the first time. This builds on their ability to manipulate multiple tenses (a key target for GCSE Language exams). Students will use the near future to say what they are going to do regarding work and any other plans they have for themselves in the future.	Students will look at the environment and what we can do to help protect it. This is cross-curricular with Geography so students will already have some knowledge of what to say in English. Students will use a variety of tenses to demonstrate fluency and manipulation of all 3 languages at once. This is a key skill at GCSE and should give students confidence to take their languages study further.