At Northside Primary School we believe that the learning of a foreign language provides an enormously valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils. It helps them to develop communication skills, including the key skills of speaking and listening, and extends their knowledge of how language works. Research shows that young children are better language learners, able to become more proficient more quickly, because they are less self-conscious about speaking aloud at this stage of their development.  Research states that learning a foreign language brings cognitive advantages: improved problem-solving, adaptability and literacy skills. It is also important to awaken children’s interests in other cultures when they are open and receptive, especially in this increasingly globalised world.  We aim to enrich all the pupils at Northside Primary with a love of learning a foreign language and the motivation to continue this learning into adulthood.

Northside pupils in Key Stage 2 have weekly French lessons with our specialist French teacher.

We choose topics to teach from the Language Angels website which are appropriate for our school and the abilities of our children, using various techniques to engage active participation in lessons and between.  We play many online interactive games and quizzes as well as using role-play to help with language learning.  We frequently use actions and picture cues to accompany new vocabulary, as this teaches language without the need for translation.  We cover all four of the communication skills; speaking, listening, reading and writing.  We make lessons as engaging as possible to help the children develop a positive attitude to learning a new language.  We build children’s confidence through constant praise for the contribution they make in lessons.  The teacher will assess children informally during lessons; and two or three times a year, children will have an 'end of topic' assessment to evaluate their progress.  

We have links with French schools, which means the children in year 5 and 6 can write to a French 'pen pal'.  The French school children visited us for a day in 2016, which was an incredible opportunity for all the children, and they are visiting again in 2026.  The children will have a chance to talk to each other, eat, play games and sing songs together.

Year 4 experience a French Café after learning about ordering food and drinks in France, and the whole school enjoys an annual French Day to explore cultural aspects of France as well as having a French cafe, with croissants and French cheese, singing and speaking in French. 

We promote the early development of pupils’ linguistic capabilities, extending their knowledge of how language works and exploring differences and similarities between the structures of French and English language.  We also want to enhance pupils’ awareness of the multilingual and multicultural world they live in.  We develop pupils’ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills to:

• Listen attentively and show understanding by joining in and responding
• Explore patterns and sounds of language developing accurate pronunciation
• Engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; speak in sentences
• Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
• Use a dictionary
• Write words and phrases from memory 
• Adapt phrases to create new sentences to express ideas clearly in writing
• Understand basic grammar