Our approach to the teaching of French and Spanish will help children develop their competencies in four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing enabling them to become confident communicators with a love of languages following a positive experience of language acquisition. We aim for children to be able to do in French and Spanish what they can do in English, meaning that we tap into their interests and help them to see language as more than just a means to an end.

‘Language Angels’ are used to support the design and delivery of language teaching at Forest View Primary School. Units are carefully planned so that they build on prior knowledge and allow the class to revisit topics. End points set out what children are taught in each phase and how this progresses through Key Stage Two.

We seek to create an environment where every child feels confident to ‘have a go’ which builds on our growth mindset approach to learning in all subjects. Children figure out, try to guess, anticipate and help each other work out what is being said. This means developing not only listening but other skills too.

Lessons are learner centred with a guided participation approach. They focus on game-based activities and tasks that are meaningful to the child. This context involves social and classroom routines that are already familiar to the pupils in English.

We encourage children to:

• develop their confidence to speak without fear of making mistakes
• try and ‘take risks’ with the language
• get familiar with sounds and basic structures and slowly move to more complex ones 
• get used to their own voice and self in a different language
• use the lesson sentence builders to complete classroom activities

The aim is to give the students plenty of opportunities to show how they develop their skills to reach objectives and be able to show that they can access the lesson objective. 

The following tools are used for formative assessment: 

• class observation of listening and reading, speaking and writing games,
• monitoring progression using phase end points,
• tasks/activities in the form of written evidence recorded in topic books when appropriate,
• videos/photos used as evidence and uploaded to Seesaw.

In our Primary Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum, inclusivity is foundational, ensuring every child can access age-appropriate learning and experience success regardless of their starting point. Because early language acquisition relies heavily on aural and oral skills, we utilize multi-sensory teaching strategies—incorporating songs, rhymes, physical actions (TPR), and visual storytelling—which naturally levels the playing field for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an Additional Language (EAL). To support children who may be falling behind or lack confidence, lessons are carefully scaffolded with step-by-step modeling and frequent opportunities for low-stakes, paired speaking practice before whole-class feedback. We deploy a range of targeted resources to meet diverse needs, including dual-language visual vocabulary mats, differentiated sentence building-blocks (sentence builders), sound buttons for pronunciation practice, and interactive language software that allows pupils to reinforce vocabulary at their own pace. By celebrating communicative effort over immediate grammatical perfection, we create a safe, adaptive environment where all pupils can thrive

Beyond the core expectations of the national curriculum, our MFL provision is purposefully designed to build cultural capital and foster a genuine excitement for global citizenship. Recognizing that our local community may not naturally offer extensive opportunities for international or diverse cultural exposure, we intentionally bring the wider world into our school to broaden our pupils' horizons. We sustain pupil interest and enjoyment by moving language out of the exercise book and into real-life contexts through a vibrant enrichment calendar. This includes immersive whole-school events like the Romanian or Filipino Day of Languages, interactive cultural workshops (such as food tasting, traditional arts, or dance), and vibrant assemblies featuring native-speaking visitors and parents from the community. Furthermore, we enrich their primary experience by establishing virtual pen-pal links with partner schools abroad and organizing transition visits to local secondary school language departments, ensuring our pupils experience the rich, lived realities of the cultures they are studying.