Vision
Our vision is to foster respect, empathy and understanding in our students. We firmly believe that every child has the right to pursue their curiosity about the world they live in through the study of the language, history, geography and culture of French and Spanish speaking countries. In MFL, our students learn about and develop a secure understanding of language, grammar and culture. Students study transactional language to enable day-to-day interactions; they master essential grammar for structuring productive communication with an emphasis on reading, writing, speaking and listening and we lead discussions on international developments and events to assimilate their knowledge of language with culture.
We firmly believe that it is our purpose to cultivate well-rounded global citizens who sustain a life-long love of learning and an acceptance of cultural diversity.
The MAGNA ACADEMY MFL Curriculum
The curriculum has three elements:
- Intent: What must be learnt
- Implementation: How it will be learned
- Impact: How we will know that learning is secure
The curriculum adheres to the above three elements, ensuring progression in each language, additionally it values the development of the 11 identified future skills. We recognise that, as well as knowledge, students need to develop their ability and skills to apply and repurpose knowledge in order to survive in a rapidly changing world. In applying knowledge to real-world contexts and allowing young learners to take the lead in using this knowledge to find solutions and answers, learning is deepened.
Intent
The MFL curriculum at Magna Academy has been designed to ensure that through providing a broad curriculum and knowledge-rich resourcing; all students regardless of background or prior attainment experience success in language acquisition. Our teachers all have the highest of expectations of our students, regardless of starting point or background, because we are driven by supporting the development of well-rounded and confident communicators.
Implementation and delivery
MFL students at Magna Academy follow a curriculum that is founded on Knowledge Organisers and Unit Booklets.
Our Knowledge Organisers provide model answers on the Unit topic that integrate not just the vocabulary but the structures and the grammar required to achieve linguistic mastery. This is made possible because of the recycling of language and structures not just between year groups and key stages but also between Units of study, which means Magna MFL students are always building on what is stored in their long term memory because of the way that we have sequenced the teaching of the language. Therefore, a topic or a structure is never left behind, nor is it ever taught in isolation; through retrieval and deliberate practice, our students are always making links between current and previous learning.
Our Unit Booklets are what enable teachers, our highly respected subject experts, to teach consistently, confidently and concisely. Every class, regardless of ability or set, has access to the same aspirational material; be that reading, listening, writing or speaking. In this way, teachers can support students creatively in lessons whilst ensuring comprehensive curriculum coverage through shared departmental resourcing.
MFL Curriculum Overview
MFL Age Related Expectations
Impact
The way we deliver the MFL curriculum at Magna Academy ensures that all learning is challenging and engaging. We ensure that learning is secure through end of Unit translation tests of one hundred questions that are an Academy-wide policy. These tests assess what students have retained from their self-quizzing homework that they produce fortnightly, as well as their ability to translate phrases they have seen in lessons in a very different context.
Alongside this, in Key Stage 3, students complete two Subject Assessments every year; a robust and rigorous combination of exam style questions in order to allow students to simultaneously demonstrate their ability, whilst also challenging them to apply knowledge of recognisable language and structures (Knowledge Organiser content) in the context of an exam style question.In Key Stage 4, students are assessed through mock GCSE assessments at two points in the year. However, students are very familiar with GCSE exam questions across the four skill areas because we use formative assessment in our Unit booklets that sees exam papers broken down into question types together with exam style questions for all homework tasks. In this way, students are confident that they know what is required of them for each paper and nothing is left to chance.
Ultimately, we in the MFL department at Magna Academy want our students to be able to express themselves in a second language on a range of topics that are of interest to them personally. It is crucial that we create an environment where curiosity is fostered across the full ability range so that students are always questioning patterns, irregularities and cultural differences. We know learning is secure when students are confident enough in a concept to begin to challenge it, question it and apply it in a range of different contexts.
It is our responsibility to support the development of our future global citizens by lighting the way to the breadth of opportunity that is available to linguists in the modern world.