Pittington Primary School

    Languages at Pittington      

Autumn Term

Early Years

Although French isn't officially taught until Key Stage 2, we like to inspire an awareness in languages as part as Understanding of the World.

In Early Years, we have been learning how to greet each other in other languages and can now say hello in French and Spanish.  Some of the children were able to talk about other languages they had heard or that their family members speak at home or on holidays.  We also took part in European Day of Languages with the rest of school where we learned some simple French phrases and found out about some French foods.

Key Stage 1

Year 1, we respond to the register with ‘Bonjour Madame…’ and in Year 2, the learn how to respond to the question 'Ça Va?' (How are you/How's it going?)

Year 3

Coming soon!

Year 4

Year 4 learned the names of many different modes of transport using flashcards. They then matched them all up in pairs before taking turns to test if they could say the French word to their partner who then had to match it to the picture.  

Year 5

Year 5 have been learning all about the names of the planets and how we can use adjectives, prepositions and conjunctions to express information about them.  We have developed our spoken and written work in this area and have been able to translate sentences in French which are about the planets. Our work on conjunctions has progressed to the use of ‘because’ and ‘so’. 

Year 6

Coming soon!

Spring Term 

Year 3

In Year 3 we learn the French version of a familiar playground song.  It was ‘Le Fermier dans son Pré.  Can you guess which song that is?  Here is the music for you to try paying it at home: 

We also learn how to read and pronounce the French words and noticed that many don't follow the phonics rules that we know for English words.  

Year 4

We learn the names of different animals and enjoyed describing what each one does. For example, ‘le cheval galope’ (the horse gallops) .

They also learn a range of foods and how to express their views about them, saying if they like them or not. 

We have listened to, translated and retold the story of ‘Les Quatre Amis’ (The Four Friends) and enjoyed playing the characters of the horse, sheep, rabbit and mouse.  We particularly focused upon identifying the nouns, verbs and adjectives. 

Year 5

‘What do you see on the way to school?’ is the topic for this term. We have explored the vocabulary used to name places found within a town and have developed our recall and pronunciation. This has included fun games and recall tasks in the class. We have also had the opportunity to record sentences in French relating to a journey to school.

We been learning about features of a town and planned an imaginary journey to school. Look at the map below and see if you can follow these instructions to find out where school is:

Quand je vais à l’école, je passe devant une café et une poste. Je traverse le riviére et après ça je passe devant un musée. Cinq minutes plus tard, je passe devant une gare et je passe devant un église. Je traverse la rue au passage pour piétons. Je passe devant trois magasin. Finalement, j’arrive à l’école.

We have also been learning how to count to 40 in French (building on our knowledge from Year 3).

Year 6

‘What Will We See In Our World' is the topic for this term.  Firstly, we focus upon our world in French.  It starts by looking at the names for the continents:

We then learn how to pronounce different geographical locations and features such as ‘les fleuves’ (the rivers) and ‘les continents’ (the continents) of the world.  

We enjoyed matching the rivers to Continents and wrote sentences such as  

L' Amazon est en Amerique du sud.  

Look below at some of our amazing translations! 

We then progressed to looking at famous rivers from around the world and wrote true or false questions about the continent where they are located.

We then really challenged ourselves and translated a paragraph about some of the world’s major rivers and extracted information from these to put into a factfile.  Look at this about The Congo in Africa.

Summer Term 

Year 3

Year 3 have been succeeding with our pronunciation and understanding for how the spelling of certain colours changes when the colour describes a feminine noun.  To do this we used our classroom display where the body part labels included the definitive articles so we could identify if the noun was masculine or feminine.

Year 3 also learn the body parts using a familiar rhyme and practised the pronunciation of the colours when singing a rainbow song. 

Year 4

Coming soon!

Year 5

Year 5 learn all about vocabulary associated with the beach through the exploration of the famous painting by Degas.

This has included developing our vocabulary range, being able to describe objects and people and working towards noun and adjective agreements. We have also been able to describe what things aren’t and we have used a range of conjunctions.

Throughout this focus, we have developed both our spoken and written work. The children really were able to respond well and recalled lots of the vocabulary.

Year 6

 In this term, Year 6 use the vocabulary which they learnt in Year 5 about features of towns and extend this to say what there is and is not in Durham. We have described Durham and compared it to Pittington.  Take a look at some of our paragraphs:

We have also been learning the names for different types of shops such as la boulangerie, l’épicerie et (and) la patisserie.

Enrichment in Languages

European Day of Languages

Every year, we celebrate the international European Day of Languages throughout the school.  Here are some examples of the multi-languages which we celebrate... (More images coming soon)

Y6 enjoyed some French food tasting to celebrate the occasion!

French Visitors

Every year, we welcome some French students from Durham University to come in and to talk to Y6 about French culture.  We enjoy listening to what they have to say and having the chance to ask them questions.

Around school, we try to incorporate some French into our daily lives in class whether that be to answer in French during a Maths lesson to show our understanding of numbers in French, replying to the register in French or through playing games and activities we keep in our drawers to reinforce our learning in MFL.