At Aldbury Primary School, we want to inspire our pupils to develop a love of languages.  The teaching of languages  lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching for our pupils beyond KS2, potentially opening up opportunities for them later in life.   

The teaching of French begins in Year 3 and it is delivered through a well sequenced and progressive scheme called ‘Salut’.   In Class 4, after learning French for two years, children are taught Spanish, following a similar scheme, with emphasis on speaking, listening and enjoying new words. 

We embed the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing necessary to enable children to use and apply their language learning in a variety of contexts.  Children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary organised around topics.   This focuses on a specific unit of work, enabling the pupils to immerse themselves in the target language, and use vocabulary meaningfully in context, whilst developing their skills. 

 In addition to this, both classes have regular short sessions of conversation in their target language throughout the week, to recap and embed core vocabulary.  We follow a 2-year cycle, so all children learn new vocabulary together.  Where possible, Makaton signing is used alongside new vocabulary, both by teacher and pupils.  

Examples of Learning