At Sunnyside Primary Academy, our French curriculum is rooted in our core pillars: Aspiring for Excellence, Enriching Language and Communication, Cultivating a Strong Community, Broadening Horizons, and Building a Knowledge Rich Foundation.  

Our French curriculum is designed to be knowledge-rich, carefully structured and coherently sequenced so that pupils build linguistic knowledge progressively throughout Key Stage 2. In line with the Ofsted Languages Research Review (2021), its intent is to ensure pupils develop secure foundations in the three pillars of language learning—phonics, vocabulary and grammar—alongside the key communicative skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. 

The curriculum aims to: 

• Develop pupils’ accuracy and confidence in French through systematic teaching of phoneme–grapheme correspondences 
• Build a broad and meaningful vocabulary base, including high frequency verbs and essential everyday language 
• Enable pupils to manipulate grammatical structures with increasing complexity 
• Foster curiosity, cultural awareness and an appreciation of language as a doorway into other cultures 
• Support pupils in understanding links between French, English and Latin through explicit teaching of etymology 
• Prepare all learners for successful progression to KS3 by embedding strong linguistic foundations 

Through this curriculum, pupils acquire not only the knowledge needed to communicate but also the cultural and cognitive benefits that language learning brings. It encourages the understanding that learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides opportunities to think differently, make connections and understand the wider world. 

Implementation 

The PKC French curriculum is delivered through a well sequenced programme that ensures pupils build knowledge cumulatively across the three pillars of language learning. 

Pillar 1: Phonics 

Phonics is taught explicitly and systematically from the outset. 

• Pupils learn the 36 French phonemes, including the 22 phonemes distinct from English
• Teaching is frontloaded in Y3 and early Y4 to secure accurate pronunciation early. 
• Regular practice and retrieval help pupils apply phonics knowledge consistently when reading and speaking. 
• Silent letters, accent marks and cognates are taught explicitly to prevent pupils applying English phonics patterns incorrectly. 

This approach enables pupils to pronounce new vocabulary accurately, decode written texts with confidence and improve comprehension of spoken French. 

Pillar 2: Vocabulary 

Vocabulary choices are deliberate, frequency informed and age appropriate. The curriculum ensures that: 

• Pupils revisit and practise vocabulary repeatedly in new and varied contexts, supporting long term retention 
• High frequency verbs such as être, avoir and aller are introduced early and recycled throughout KS2 
• Vocabulary is grouped into meaningful and transferable topics, building up in breadth and complexity across year groups
• Etymology is explicitly taught, helping pupils make links to English and Latin, strengthening understanding and recall 

Year group coverage includes: 

• Year 4: parts of the body, food, opinions, numbers 1–31, months, dates, simple maths, personal descriptions, family and clothes 
• Year 5: sports, hobbies, extended opinions, weather, numbers 32–60, school subjects, classroom items and transport 
• Year 6: telling the time, daily routine, countries, houses and rooms, furniture, places in town, market shopping and ordering food in cafés/restaurants 

A strong repertoire of techniques retrieval tasks, oral rehearsal, spaced practice and cumulative tasks—ensures pupils retain and confidently use taught vocabulary. 

Pillar 3: Grammar 

Grammar is taught cumulatively so pupils build a coherent and connected understanding of how French works. 

Verb conjugation is introduced progressively: 

• Y3: je suis, j’ai 
• Y4: il/elle est, il/elle a 
• Y5: first introduction to nous forms and nearfuture tense 
• Y6: past tense forms and consolidation of key verb paradigms 

Pupils learn key grammatical concepts in a structured sequence:  

• Y3: noun gender, position of adjectives 
• Y4: adjectival agreement 
• Y3–Y6: expanding conjunctions from et and mais to parce que in Y5 and beyond 

Pupils are taught to manipulate grammar to express meaning in speaking and writing, applying rules across different contexts 

This structured progression prevents fragmentation and supports pupils in developing a robust grammatical system over time. 

Curriculum Structure and Pedagogy 

• Retrieval practice is embedded throughout to strengthen long term memory. 
• Topics are selected to provide meaningful contexts for applying new language. 
• Listening, speaking, reading and writing activities are integrated within each unit. 
• Sequencing ensures that knowledge builds from lesson to lesson and year to year. 
• Opportunities for authentic communication increase as pupils progress, culminating in practical tasks such as shopping at a market or ordering in a café. 

The curriculum fully aligns with the National Curriculum for Languages and exceeds its expectations through systematic phonics, rich vocabulary instruction and structured grammar development. 

Impact 

By the end of KS2, pupils who have followed the PKC French curriculum demonstrate: 

Linguistic Competence 

• Accurate pronunciation based on secure phonics knowledge 
• The ability to decode and understand written French with increasing independence 
• A broad vocabulary base enabling communication on a range of everyday topics 
• The ability to use highfrequency verbs confidently across tenses
• Increasingly accurate spoken and written language, using appropriate grammatical structures 

Communication Skills 

Pupils can: 

• Understand and respond to spoken and written French from a range of sources 
• Ask and answer questions, hold simple conversations and express ideas with growing fluency
• Write for different purposes and audiences, drawing on taught vocabulary and grammar 
• Communicate confidently in practical scenarios (e.g., shopping, describing routines, giving opinions) 

Wider Development 

Pupils also: 

• Demonstrate curiosity about languages and cultures
• Make connections between French, English and Latin, supporting wider literacy 
• Show increased resilience and confidence in applying knowledge in new contexts 
• Move to secondary school with a strong foundation, ready to access KS3 French with confidence 

Overall, the PKC French curriculum ensures that pupils leave KS2 as capable, confident, culturally aware language learners equipped with the key knowledge and skills required for future success.