VISION

At Great Kingshill we believe that every child should have the opportunity to celebrate languages and culture within their homes, class, school and the wider world in which they live. From Pre-school to Year 6 and beyond our dream is to inspire the children to enjoy learning a variety of languages and experience differing ways of communication.

It is our vision that by the time children transition to secondary school, they will be better equipped to make informed choices about the languages they wish to pursue as well as understanding the significance and importance of embracing different cultures in their immediate and future environment.

Understanding cultural and language differences not only facilitates a better understanding of the wider world but it also has learning benefits across the curriculum. Language learning promotes interest in computing, Geography, History, Science, English language as well as analytical brain development. As children’s knowledge grows, their understanding and appreciation of the English language and it’s origins also grows.

Above all, we want the children to have fun learning the wide spectrum of MFL on offer and inspire those future global leaders!

INTENT

We are fortunate at GKCS to have a wide range of language skills at our fingertips, both from within our staffing team to the children and their families. This is something that we will actively explore during special days such as International Mother Tongue Day, European Languages Day and through our day-to-day activities such as doing the register in different languages and special cultural events.

Language is something to be celebrated and our intention is to share this with the children through a variety of mediums such as song, dance, conversation and art.

It is our primary intent to build confidence in the children to ‘have a go’ and not be shy about embracing this wonderful opportunity to expand their communication capabilities. Irrespective of their ability, all children will have access to learning alternative languages and ways of communicating concentrating on verbal, non-verbal and later in KS2 a little writing.

Whilst there is no governmental obligation for the children to learn languages in EYFS and KS1 it is our intent to install this love of learning languages from the moment they start their journey with us at GKCS. At the beginning of their journey where they are learning to communicate in their mother tongue, our intent is to share basic statements, words and expressions using Makaton so whatever their stage of communication or specific individual needs they can communicate effectively with their peers and adults. As they progress on their learning journey, they will learn how to say basic greetings in a variety of languages, learn basic phrases linked with their topics and concentrate on one main language for their weekly language learning which will be either French, Spanish or German.

As well as learning the languages, it is our intent that the children will also learn their relevant geographical reach and associated culture similarities and differences. This can often be combined with other subjects such as Geography, History and Art which also enables children to recognise root language similarities with English. Our approach ensures that languages become an integral part of a child's learning journey.