French

At Trafalgar school, the French curriculum focuses on developing students' linguistic skills while understanding the social complexity of our world. As a UNICEF rights respecting school, we believe that all language learners need to  develop the skills and confidence to consider themselves as ‘World Citizens’ who belong in a multicultural, mutually respectful and interconnected  world where  freedom of thought and belief are key concepts. The study of a new language equips our students with life lasting skills that will enable them to broaden their horizons and  aspirations. Our curriculum aims to foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world.

Moreover, during their 5-year Trafalgar journey, students will be given the opportunity to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. The use of IT is an essential part of our curriculum as it gives us access to a wide range of authentic and cultural resources. Technology also enables our students to be exposed to the target language outside of the classroom. This enables all  students, regardless of ability or background, to achieve their full potential and develop their competence in the four skills (listening, reading, writing and speaking). 

Our teaching provides the foundation for learning further languages, equipping students to study and work in other countries, but also helping them to understand that diversity and cultural differences are in the heart of every community. For all these reasons, we believe that language learning at Trafalgar strongly contributes to pupils’ acquisition of cultural capital.

The following skills are embedded in our planning. Our objectives in the teaching of French align with the National Curriculum in that we aim to ensure all pupils: 

• Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Key Stage 3: 

Students will be regularly assessed in our fours Assessment Objectives: Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing.

Key Stage 4:

The GCSE curriculum is scaffolded in 2 years in order to cover the themes set by AQA specification:

• Theme 1: Identity and culture.
• Theme 2: Local, national, international and global areas of interest.
• Theme 3: Current and future study and employment.

AQA | GCSE | French | Specification at a glance 

It is within our scope that home learning plays a vital role in student’s learning. It gives them the opportunity to consolidate and practise their skills that have been taught in their language lessons. It is therefore essential that students spend a considerable amount of their home learning time. As a result of this, we would actively ensure that the extended work is meaningful and productive across all year groups. It is vital that all home learning is uploaded on Google Classroom as well as Class Charts. 

In order to extend their learning beyond, the main focus of home learning in MFL consists of the three required skills; reading, listening and writing. We should take into account the students' accessibility of their home learning as well as ensuring to manage the workload by consistently planning and marking accordingly.

Duration for Home Learning

Home learning in MFL will be on a platform known as Sentence builders. Students will be accessing their home learning on this platform where they will be practising their listening, reading and writing skills.

Moreover, students should also use Memrise.com at home on a regular basis to revise the vocabulary covered at school. Memrise is just an extra app to support our students, spending 5 minutes a day using this app can have a significant impact on the vocabulary acquisition of our students.

There is also a variety of after school clubs that students can join as well as an ongoing Memrise house competition so everything your child does will add to their house's total score.

Welcome to MFL at Trafalgar School! 

I am proud to be the Director for Modern Foreign Languages  working with a fantastic team of staff to deliver the absolute best French & Spanish curriculum for our students. Our team is passionate about teaching languages and committed to bring real life experiences to our classrooms.

Our main aim is to build on reading and listening skills, focusing on using different tenses, encouraging students to question and the ability to understand and to share the feelings of another. While making links to other subjects, we teach strategies over time for structured writing. We firmly believe studying a language at GCSE will give students an edge when applying to study a wide range of degree courses at university and prepare them well for the global job market.   

Aamir Kohli (Director of MFL) akohli@trafalgarschool.org.uk 

Selma Rahmouni (Lead Practitioner - MFL) srahmouni@trafalgarschool.org.uk 

Charlotte Argyle cargyle@trafalgarschool.org.uk

Nima Abdul (Head of Spanish) nabdul@trafalgarschool.org.uk

Nouhouy Abdillahi nabdillahi@trafalgarschool.org.uk