French

The PKC French curriculum is knowledge-rich. This means the knowledge children will gain has been carefully specified, ordered coherently and builds progressively over time. The curriculum is built on the three pillars of language learning: phonics, vocabulary and grammar.

There is significant evidence that direct and systematic teaching of phonics in the new language is a reliable method for assuring accurate pronunciation and spelling. Teaching the rules of pronunciation in this way is much more efficient and effective than teaching children the pronunciation of each word they learn separately. There are 36 phonemes in French, compared with 44 in English.

A strong knowledge of vocabulary is crucial for learners to become proficient in French. The vocabulary taught should be informed by frequency of occurrence in the language, and special attention should be paid to common verbs in the early stages. The choice of vocabulary in the PKC curriculum has been carefully considered, in view of the learners’ age and the frequency with which words occur in the language.

Grammar is indispensable for communication in a new language. As grammatical knowledge of a language is cumulative, PKC French builds grammatical knowledge consistently. In the PKC curriculum, pupils learn the conjugation of high frequency verbs cumulatively, for example, by learning the ‘I’ form of ‘to be’ (je suis) and ‘to have’ (j’ai) in Y3, the ‘he/she’ form in Y4, the ‘we’ form in Y5 and so on. Their knowledge of tenses develops so that in Y5 they learn to describe activities in the future and in Y6 in the past. Their knowledge of nouns and adjectives develops over time, so that they learn the concept of gender (the fact that all nouns are either masculine or feminine) and the position of adjectives in Y3, then adjectival agreements in Y4. They learn a series of different conjunctions starting in Y3 with ‘and’ and ‘but’ and developing over time with ‘because’ in Y5.

We provide a subject rationale that explains the thinking behind how the curriculum has been designed, a curriculum map which shows the units pupils learn PowerPoint slides to support teaching of the content. The planning for each unit is detailed clearly signposts any connections with other parts of the PKC curriculum.

The PKC French curriculum meets the National Curriculum requirements for years 3-6.