Languages

The shared Languages curriculum for French, German and Spanish has been created in collaboration with the Heads of Languages in the Trust and is based upon the 3 pillars of Languages teaching: vocabulary, grammar and phonics. It also follows the following agreed principles:

• The language taught should be carefully chosen, learnt and mastered by students.

• The grammar taught should be carefully chosen and gradually introduced to students.

• Any assessment materials should be carefully chosen and aligned to the content taught to students to at least 95%.

• Teaching the culture of the Target Language should play an important part across the curriculum.

The curriculum has been designed as a 5-year journey, is bespoke and has been written with students' prior knowledge in mind as well as building for developing the 4 skills: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. This is done through developing success in the subject by spending time focussing on one module a term, chunking the vocabulary and grammar students need to acquire and retrieving previous knowledge whenever possible. It is expected that schools who choose to follow the curriculum will do so in the order set out.

The curriculum during the first 3 years of the 5-year journey was collaboratively developed through discussion around the gradual sequencing of the modules which are based on the topics students will be studying at GCSE. In Years 10 and 11, the curriculum is designed to follow the Pearson Edexcel GCSE. The lessons follow the sequence of the Pearson textbooks and are designed to teach students the knowledge and skills to achieve at least a grade 4 at GCSE. 

Each module is broken down into units that are each made of 6 lessons. This small step scheme of learning allows students to master vocabulary, grammar and/or phonics before moving on to the next step. There is time built into the curriculum so that if a class hasn’t fully grasped a sequence then a teacher can be responsive to the needs of the students and not just move on to the next sequence. Schools can access all of the resources through the shared Google Drive.

The lessons have been shared collaboratively and, just as the curriculum itself, focus on developing success and knowledge acquisition. In order to achieve this, the Heads of Languages agreed on a shared evidence informed methodology based on Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) and the MARS EARS sequence (see here).

The lessons are designed to support teachers in their teaching and a booklet has been produced as a support to students. The activities in the lessons can be adapted or changed by teachers for their class. Any improvement to the lessons is welcome and teachers are encouraged to share the changes made with their Heads of Department and the Director of Languages so it benefits every student in the Trust.
The lessons, the sequencing of lessons and the order of modules are reviewed yearly during a conference for all Languages teachers so that the curriculum remains “alive”.