Subject Vison

‘Woodfield academy is a place where our day to day mission is to ignite a passion to learn and a desire to succeed in an environment that nurtures all.’

It is a place where learners are taught through our curriculum, to make informed choices and to be responsible for their own actions, through the teaching of four core values; Compassion, Respect, Resilience and Responsibility.

Through the teaching of French and German at Woodfield Academy, we aim to engender a love of learning a language and to equip our pupils with the skills, knowledge and understanding to underpin future studies. We seek to challenge and inspire, nurture a linguistic curiosity, and increase our pupils’ cultural capital.

Our purpose is to enable pupils to communicate in written and spoken form with increasing confidence, fluency, accuracy, and spontaneity. We seek to deepen their understanding of the world and their place within it so that they are more open and adaptable to new experiences.

Teaching develops the breadth and depth of pupils’ competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing based on a sound foundation of phonetics, core grammar and vocabulary. We adapt our curriculum to include pupils of all abilities, and activities are tailored to support and extend so that all pupils can realise their potential. Topics are chosen to reflect pupils’ interest, as well as providing them with the requirements needed for the next stage in their learning. The department endeavours to make learning languages fun and meaningful, providing students with opportunities for both collaboration and independent work in each lesson. Games, quizzes and competitions keep motivation high in lessons and a range of strategies, such as group talk, think-pair-share, role plays etc. are employed to create a classroom culture where learning from others is valued.

Pupils will also develop transferable skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as a growing appreciation and knowledge of another culture.

At KS3, they will be able to manipulate language for their own purposes, encouraging independent, enquiring linguists. Pupils will learn different tenses and will be introduced to the skills required at GCSE such as translation into German and English. We emphasise that mistakes are part of the learning journey, and work on building our pupils’ resilience by encouraging them to take risks. Use of the target language ensures that pupils are hearing authentic language each time they are in the MFL classroom. We are passionate about the joy and value language learning can bring to our pupils.

At KS3 we endeavour to provide additional learning opportunities through international visits. A trip to Germany is offered every 2 years, where a range of cultural activities are planned including a visit to our partner school.

MFL – Primary National Curriculum

MFL – Secondary National Curriculum