French

 The ability to speak French is highly sought after among UK employers, with 49% rating it useful for their organisation. With France currently the world’s top tourist destination, and French an official language in 29 countries, spoken on every continent, studying French offers students many future leisure and business opportunities. French shares many of the same Latin roots as English, so studying it helps with English literacy.  

At Ixworth High School, our French curriculum aims to equip students with the skills and confidence to choose and excel in GCSE tasks while fostering an awareness of the diverse cultures within the French-speaking world. We encourage open-mindedness and tolerance by exposing students to the fact that French is spoken in many countries beyond France.

Beginning in Year 7, students receive balanced instruction across all key language skills—listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. The curriculum is carefully structured to progressively build on these requirements, revisiting key concepts to deepen understanding and fluency. Advanced grammatical structures, such as tenses, are introduced early as vocabulary rather than formal concepts, helping students master these skills over time. For example, Year 7 students learn phrases like "je voudrais" without needing to understand the conditional tense, preparing them for future success. 
As students progress, tasks become more challenging, with a strong focus on mastering tenses, essential for achieving high marks for those that opt for it at GCSE. By Year 9, students are introduced to higher level materials to ensure a smooth transition to KS4, boosting their confidence in speaking and listening while demonstrating that the exams are accessible and enjoyable. 

The introduction of 100-minute lessons allows for extended speaking and writing tasks, which encourage spontaneous language use and deeper engagement. Through these production tasks and problem-solving activities, students become confident, competent, and independent linguists, ready for continued language study and success in a multilingual world. 
 
Our curriculum is designed to: 

• Create opportunities so that all students are engaged and challenged, whilst being supported to achieve their best 

  Develop the students’ powers of oral communication and confidence in their chosen language, creating speaking opportunities to build confidence, spontaneity and a willingness to communicate  

• Achieve high levels of engagement and collaboration in lessons through pair and group work, including fun games and challenges  

• Support retention of knowledge with regular review (daily, weekly, monthly)  

• Present new material in small steps, providing models & scaffolds and through guided practice 

• We also focus on students gaining cultural insights which are carefully embedded in our curriculum.  We use a variety of resources, including authentic material and experiences by our native language teachers. 

We encourage our students to:  

• Build confidence so that they are prepared to ‘have a go’ and communicate willingly 

   

• Develop linguistic skills and awareness of grammar, so that they can communicate effectively 

   

• Develop personal qualities, such as politeness, perseverance, empathy, confidence and independence, through Speaking and Listening activities.

• Develop transferable learning skills, such as collaboration, initiative, creativity and 'thinking outside the box', which can be used in other subjects and future careers

• Develop their awareness of cultural differences and understand other perspectives to equip them as ‘Global Citizens’ who belong to a multicultural world

• Apply their learning by reflecting on their own first language, exploring similarities and differences to develop an understanding of how language works.