Four Oaks Primary School

At Four Oaks we are linguists! We want our children to love Modern Foreign Languages. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up enabled to become multilingual, respectful of other cultures and enthusiastic about speaking in foreign languages. We want them to embody our core values:  we all “strive to be the best we can be”. We want our children to remember their MFL lessons in our school, to cherish these memories and embrace the language opportunities they are presented with! This year, pupils enjoyed celebrating a Spanish themed day. Children completed fun activities and enjoyed a Spanish themed lunch accompanied with Spanish music. The children came to school dressed in red and yellow clothing. Bringing MFL alive is important at Four Oaks Primary School. 

The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the experience with a child commenting, “It was a great day! We learnt Spanish, completed different activities and learnt about Spain!” A child in Key Stage 2 commented, “It was fun! We learnt about Spain and enjoyed our Spanish themed lunch! I liked dressing up in yellow and red!”

We want to equip them with not only the minimum statutory requirements of the MFL National Curriculum but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Our children have the opportunity to celebrate different cultures and languages through celebration days. For instance, Chinese New Year is celebrated with a Chinese lunch, including a Chinese Fortune Cookie for every child, served in a decorated dining room! A child in year 3 commented, “I enjoyed the day! The lunch was delicious. We learnt about Chinese traditions, religion and their country.” We use our celebration days to embrace other cultures and languages from around the world. In the future, we will restart our links with e-pen pals from countries around the world to further develop their interest and knowledge of other cultures and languages. Previously in Year 3, children wrote to individual pen pals in Hungary and asked questions about their culture, language and how their school differed from ours. We look forward to exploring further links with pen pals around the world and learning new words and phrases that can be used in class. 

We want our children to use the vibrancy of our great city to learn from other cultures, respect diversity, co-operate with one another and appreciate what they have. We achieve this by providing a SMSC curriculum, with Four Oaks’ British ‘Golden’ Values at the heart of everything we do. This often feeds into the MFL curriculum. For example, some of our children speak English as an additional language. This was celebrated by Year 2 teachers and pupils in our Christmas Carol concert by children learning to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in the languages spoken by their EAL peers. KS1 also learned how to sing a Christmas song in Spanish and performed this for their parents. Alongside Spanish lessons, we also offer both a Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Spanish club with a language specialist, to allow those with a love for learning to continue to thrive. A year 3 pupil recently said, “Spanish Club is so much fun! We love learning Spanish, playing different games and singing songs.” This is a brilliant way to celebrate diversity and cultural differences. Children have also been shown our ‘English as an additional language’ board. This allows children to explore where other children in Four Oaks come from and where they can find other peers and staff who speak their language.

We enrich the children’s time in our school with memorable experiences and provide opportunities which may otherwise be out of reach. We firmly believe that developing well rounded, lifelong learners is not just about what happens in the classroom, it is about the added value we offer that will really inspire our children.
 

We implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. MFL is taught as a new topic every half term, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. This helps to ensure sufficient time is allocated to MFL and that subject matter can be revisited. We believe that by crafting our curriculum this way, we improve the potential for our children to retain what they have been taught, to alter their long-term memory and thus improve the rates of progress they make.

The MFL curriculum at Four Oaks Primary School is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan short follow-up lessons based on both the required curriculum coverage and the children’s interests. A variety of teaching approaches are used based on teacher judgement, ensuring progression of knowledge and skills from year group to year group. MFL teaching focuses on enabling children to think as linguists.

We develop the following essential characteristics of linguists:

• A knowledge of different languages
• An understanding of different cultures
• A respect for appreciation of different people in different countries.
• Ability to develop skills in 4 areas – listening, reading, speaking and writing.
• A passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about different languages.