At Chestnuts, our modern foreign language curriculum is designed to progressively develop children’s knowledge and skills in languages through regular, taught lessons. Through exploration of language patterns, collaboration, song and physical activity, all children are encouraged to develop a passion for the language and its nuances, to have fun while learning another language and to challenge themselves and achieve well.     

Throughout their learning journey, our children acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary which is organised around topics. As we also understand the science of learning, we have designed our curriculum to enable the children to revisit prior knowledge before building on this. In this way, we ensure that the children continuously embed their knowledge, extend their understanding and use more sophisticated language as they move through Key Stage 2. An example of this is shown through the reading strand where children begin, in Year 3, learning to read single words and short phrases, progressing to short texts and using their phonic knowledge to decode new vocabulary in Year 4. By Year 5, the children will be reading a range of texts in different formats and covering a range of genres. Finally, by the end of Year 6, they will have developed their fluency and confidence in reading German. This ensures that they leave Chestnuts with the building blocks needed to be successful language learners in secondary school and beyond.   

The German curriculum allows for constant repetition of vocabulary and phrases which are taught in 30-minute sessions each week. Expectations of achievement are high for all learners and through our nurturing and inclusive ethos, all children are enabled to succeed.   

Through our modern foreign language curriculum, we also promote a curiosity about the world around us, ensuring that the children have knowledge of other cultures and that they are aware of our multilingual and multicultural world and are empowered to play their part in it.