Woodside’s French Curriculum

“Learning another language is like discovering a new window on the world.” – Frank Smith

At Woodside, we believe learning a language opens doors to curiosity, cultural understanding and confidence. Our French curriculum enables children to listen, speak, read and write with increasing accuracy while developing a love of languages that will grow with them into secondary school and beyond.

A Curriculum That Builds Confidence and Communication

French is taught weekly in Years 3–6, with lessons of at least 30 minutes delivered by our French specialist teacher, John Lavis. Lessons follow a clear progression that supports speaking, listening, reading and writing, with opportunities for intelligent repetition to secure key language skills.

Units are sequenced to provide purposeful progression, strong phonics focus and regular retrieval opportunities to help children embed vocabulary and structures over time.

Rooted in Rigour, Enriched by Creativity

We use Language Angels as the core structure of our curriculum, ensuring coverage of all National Curriculum objectives and a logical learning sequence across KS2.

However, at Woodside we go beyond this. Our French provision is enriched through:

• Language Days celebrating French and other world languages
• European Day of Languages competitions and challenges
• Cross‑curricular opportunities to enjoy languages through songs, stories, games and culture
• A whole‑school commitment to multilingualism, where every class (from Reception to Year 6) learns greetings in different world languages each year—highlighting the linguistic diversity of our school and beyond

This wider cultural awareness helps children see language learning as a joyful and universal human skill.

Designed for Progression and Joyful Learning

Our long‑term plan introduces children to a broad vocabulary and real‑life contexts, building confidence through familiar themes that grow in complexity each year.

Some examples include:

• Year 3: greetings, animals, instruments, sports, fruits and ice creams
• Year 4: presenting myself, family, vegetables, fruits, school and home
• Year 5: food and cafés, pets, colours, clothes and school subjects
• Year 6: opinions, dates, telling the time, clothes and weekend activities
  

Every unit includes opportunities to speak in full sentences, build grammatical understanding and develop accurate pronunciation.

A Typical Lesson at Woodside

French lessons follow a consistent and effective structure, enabling children to know more and remember more over time. Lessons typically include:

• Saying and writing the date in French
• Recap and retrieval tasks from current or previous years
• Explicit vocabulary and sentence teaching
• Repetition, copying and call‑and‑response activities
• Listening, speaking, reading and writing tasks including songs, fill‑in‑the‑gap activities, ordering, and short written responses
  

Summative assessments take place at the end of each unit, with children assessed against clearly mapped‑out end points.

Celebrating Languages Across the School

At Woodside, languages are celebrated joyfully throughout the year.
Children enjoy:

• Class‑specific language greeting focuses each term from EYFS upward
• Whole‑school events that highlight the beauty and diversity of world languages
• Opportunities to showcase French learning through competitions, assemblies and themed days
  

These experiences help pupils appreciate languages as a vital part of global citizenship.

What Makes Woodside’s French Curriculum Special?

• A specialist‑taught curriculum with strong progression
• High‑quality resources through Language Angels, enhanced by bespoke Woodside experiences
• Celebration of linguistic diversity across the whole school
• Purposeful, joyful and confidence‑building lessons
• Rich cultural experiences through competitions and whole‑school events
• A clear commitment to communication, curiosity and cultural awareness

At Woodside, we don’t just teach French—
we grow confident, curious global communicators.

National Curriculum – Languages key stages 1 to 2 (publishing.service.gov.uk)