Modern Foreign Languages | Herne Church of England Infant School

Modern Foreign Languages

Herne CE Infant and Nursery School

Modern Foreign Languages

Modern Foreign Languages is not a statutory subject in The Early Years. However, at Herne Infant School and Nursery School we believe that children should be given opportunities to explore different cultures and languages to extend their understanding of the wider world.

Aims

The Early Learning Goals in the Nursery and Foundation Stage highlight that children should be encouraged to:

Talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members.
Know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.

The National Curriculum for Key Stage One states that children:

Understand and respond to spoken and written language (as appropriate) from a variety of authentic sources.
Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation.

Through a child centred approach, children across the school and nursery learn about the different cultures and languages across the world in a variety of ways. These include learning songs in French, Spanish and German, learning different ways to greet someone in different languages and being part of cultural days such as Chinese New Year, Divali and Bastille. Special events such as the Olympics and events in British and world history are also used as a portal to immerse the children in a rich cultural curriculum and environment. Children are given opportunities to explore dances, music, food and art work from across the world. They are given time to talk about their own family traditions and parents who speak other languages are warmly welcomed into school.