Languages
At St Joseph's, all pupils from Years 3-6 are taught a modern foreign language in line with the new primary curriculum.
Studying a language aims to foster a pupil's curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. It helps them appreciate the many languages spoken by the pupils at St Joseph's and helps to celebrate the different cultures and diversities that make up our school family.
It also provides a solid foundation for learning further languages in the future.
Our aim is to give children an enjoyment of language learning and the confidence to develop new skills.
Over the last few years, French has been taught to all KS2 pupils for up to one hour per week.
Click HERE to see our Foreign Languages Policy Statement.
Our language teaching is based on a scheme called "Light Bulb Languages." Click HERE for a link to their website.
Click HERE to see our overview of our KS2 year group coverage for this year.
This year (2022-2023) we will be teaching French again across KS2 and will continue with this next year, enabling pupils to make substantial progress in one language. The main focus of our lessons is on practical communication.
At St Joseph's, we aim to teach our pupils French through a variety of activities e.g. joining in songs, engaging in conversations, playing games that encourage speaking and consolidate understanding, pronunciation and intonation, reading and writing simple words and phrases and through ICT/computer programmes and games.
Each class's activities and learning are recorded in a French learning journal.
As well as learning the French language, our pupils also learn about life in France and the French culture.
Children in Year 4 locate French speaking countries (pays de francophones) using globes and atlases. They learn how to say whether they like/dislike certain foods. They play travel bingo and ask each other how they travel to school to create a tally chart.
Year 4 learn to name animals found in different habitats and Year 6 write postcards about places in the town, applying their knowledge of simple greetings and weather phrases in simple sentences too.
As well as learning the French language, our KS2 classes are also learning about French culture and comparing life in France to life in England.
The focus this half term is French artists. Each class has looked at the work of a different French artist and then created a piece based on that artist work, whilst also applying the skills they have learnt in class.
They also learnt about the artists themselves and their style of art.
Year 3 - Georges Braque Year 4 - Edgar Degas Year 5 - George Seurat Year 6 - Édouard Manet
Language of the half term
At St Joseph's School we are proud of our diversity and the vast number of languages spoken by our families.
At St Joseph's, every half term, we celebrate the languages besides English which are spoken at home by some of our pupils.
Each half term, we try to learn a few useful phrases and words, to answer the register and say "please" and "thank you" in our chosen language. The child/children who speak the chosen language will help their classmates learn the correct pronunciation and will share picture books written in their home language as well as in English.
We also have several dual-lingual picture books in our school library.
Here are a few websites that may support your child with their French learning.