Studying a foreign language inspires appreciation for others and expands our insight of society. It promotes superior awareness of the surrounding world and supplies us with an exclusive opportunity to cultivate appreciation, strengthen our insight and contemplate distinct viewpoints. 

All students at Manshead CE Academy study either French or Spanish in KS3 and are given the choice to continue the course studied and achieve a GCSE or A-level.  

The MFL department maintains the highest standards for language learning and aims at instilling a passion and commitment for language learning that empowers pupils to achieve their goals with a long-term benefit in years to come as they will access universal opportunities once they progress from school.

MFL teaching at Manshead CE Academy is interactive, challenging and facilitates students’ communicative competence, enabling them to become independent learners and have high aspirations throughout their learning journey. 

The aim of the KS3 and KS4 course is to implement a systematic approach to the three pillars of language learning: phonics, grammar and vocabulary. The MFL team support pupil’s development of critical and deep thinking through consistent exposure to skills that they can apply to learning other foreign languages in the future and are also transferrable to other subjects. This is achieved through our coherently sequenced curriculum which has had an impact in both French and Spanish. 

Our lessons are tailored to the individual needs of our students ensuring differentiation is provided in the form of scaffolding, sentence builders, learning mats, model answers. To enable stretch and challenge, when applicable, students are presented with tasks using wider-ranging vocabulary and grammatical structures in order to reinforce their linguistic abilities. 

The assessment schedule includes regular knowledge recall and interleaving of high-frequency grammatical framework and themes in both French and Spanish thus establishing constructions are managed spontaneously, resiliently and confidently. Through this approach to languages skills we are preparing students for the demands of the new GCSE course in addition to creating proficient communicators. 

Furthermore, students’ understanding, respect and acceptance of other beliefs is fostered through exposure to authentic learning materials that provide a clearer grasp of cultural similarities and differences amidst French or Spanish speaking countries and other countries around the world.  

Modern Foreign Language students are guided, supported and encouraged to flourish from the minute they walk in to their language lessons at Manshead CE Academy. MFL teachers use target language to immerse students into Foreign Languages worlds where they are expected to communicate with their teachers and peers in French or Spanish. 

To facilitate access to our curriculum and differentiate in accordance to our students’ individual needs, access to the department’s key vocabulary and grammar knowledge organisers is encouraged and accessible in their books and interactively via Arbor accounts, giving parents also the opportunity to support our children in their MFL journey and explore languages as a community.  

Our students feel empowered and take responsibility of independent practice over two indispensable digital platforms:

www.kerboodle.com 

https://uk.language-gym.com

This is achieved by accessing digital textbooks and associated resources to assist practice, learning, consolidation and recall of knowledge acquisition. 

Furthermore, students have the opportunity to attend after-school drop-in sessions for French and Spanish where students can further practice their languages acquisition through a different range of activities.