At Woodford, we believe that learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an essential opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world around them. Teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas, thoughts and opinions in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should provide them with opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes and read great literature in another language. Most importantly, it should provide pupils with new ways of thinking and understanding: language learning should provide pupils with the foundation for learning new languages and understanding more about their own.

At Woodford Primary School, we are committed to fulfil the aims and deliver the learning outcomes of the National Curriculum Languages programme of study for KS2. Through our weekly language lessons, pupils will gain:

- Opportunities to communicate for practical purposes in the wider world.

- Essential foundational skills for further language learning beyond KS2, equipping them to study and work in other countries and widening their aspirations and experiences of other cultures.

- A greater awareness of what it means to be a global citizen and a new perspective on the world, understanding their own cultures and those of others.

We follow Professor Rachel Hawkes’s KS2 French Scheme of Work and teach three core strands of essential knowledge:

1. Phonics: the key components of the sound-writing relationship.

2. Vocabulary: a set of the language’s most frequently used words.

3. Grammar: the essential building blocks needed to create simple sentences independently.