The Pate’s French curriculum has been created with a focus on language for life. Students start in Year 7 with a very varied experience of French. On arrival, they complete an entry questionnaire to inform us about their prior knowledge and experience. This information helps shape how we support, stretch and challenge students as they go through the Lower School curriculum. We assess students in Years 7 and 8 in relation to three key strands: communication, comprehension, and grammatical understanding and application. Students will develop transferable skills that will support them in their learning of another language at GCSE and A Level. They will gain an understanding of the French speaking world and collate a practical ‘toolkit’ of language which can be used in many real-world situations in France and beyond. A highlight of the Year 7 curriculum for many students is a residential language immersion trip to Normandy in the summer term.

In Year 9, the French curriculum builds on the skills and knowledge acquired in Years 7 and 8. It is also designed to provide strong foundations for studying French at GCSE and the topics, skills and grammatical content covered this year make up the first element of Theme 1 (Identity and Culture) of the GCSE course. Students in Years 9 and 10 are offered the opportunity to take part in the French Exchange with partner schools from Cheltenham’s twin town of Annecy in the idyllic Haute-Savoie region of France.

The Pate’s GCSE (Key Stage 4) French curriculum is shaped around the requirements of the AQA GCSE French specification but has been created with a focus on language for life, consciously building on the skills and knowledge acquired in Years 7, 8 and 9. Students entering Year 10 have amassed a wealth of relevant vocabulary, grammatical structures, communicative and comprehension skills and these are drawn upon in the GCSE course. Although many students continue to take their French studies on to A Level, for those whose French journey will stop after Year 11, we aim to provide transferable skills that will help them in their learning of another language at A Level, or give them cultural insight and linguistic competency that will enable them to live and work in the French speaking world outside of Pate’s. Where possible, we seek to overlap with current affairs and topics studied in Humanities, English and the Sciences.

The Pate’s A Level (Key Stage 5) French curriculum is shaped around the requirements of the AQA GCE French A Level specification. We again make conscious reference to the foundational skills and knowledge students have gained over Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4; students entering Year 12 have amassed a wealth of relevant vocabulary, grammatical structures, communicative and comprehension skills and these are built upon in the A Level course. We are, however, aware that there are sometimes gaps in grammatical understanding and application at the beginning of Year 12 and we seek to address this through our ‘skills’ test and intensive grammar course which runs alongside core topic work over the course of the first year of the A Level. The AQA course covered in Year 12 enables students to reuse and recycle vocabulary and structures from GCSE, but rapidly encourages and requires them to think about the context of the French speaking world and the persuasiveness of the language they are using. By the end of the course we aim to give students the transferable skills, cultural insight and linguistic competency that will enable them to live and work in the French speaking world. Many of our students are inspired to continue French at university and beyond, often combining French with other languages or a wide variety of other programmes of study. Work experience in France is offered to all Year 12 students which provides an opportunity to practise and enhance their French, whilst gaining valuable real-world experience in the work place.