The colouring books are good for you! They contain no chocolate, and the colouring in will promote mindfulness and lower stress levels. You will also learn about 24 ways in which the Christmas period is marked and celebrated in France and in Spanish-speaking countries.
Find the French one here and the Spanish one here.
Have a look at my other Sellfy Christmas resources here, and there are lots of free Christmas resources on Light Bulb Languages.
A couple of weekends ago I attended the Association for Language Learning Online Conference and was reminded of Suno, the AI app which will create songs for you.
Suno has the potential to be a game changer for language teachers. We know how well songs can work to fix language in students' memory in a fun way, but it's often hard to find a suitable song that practises the language that we want to practise.
With Suno, all you have to do is to type in your lyrics, decide on the genre of song that you would like it to create, and click on the Create button. Each time it will create two different songs. You are given 50 credits each day, and each pair of songs costs 10 credits.
I have tried creating lyrics in ChatGPT, with some success. It's difficult to get lyrics that are simple enough for primary learners. In the Spanish planets song, for example, ChatGPT created the lists of planets and their descriptions, but I created the chorus myself. Also as a chorister/musician myself, I am quite picky about the songs that I eventually choose!
I have downloaded the songs as mp3s, and then converted them to mp4s in Canva, using an image file with the lyrics as the background. I have uploaded them to my YouTube channel, where they are in the playlists Spanish songs and French songs.
The children at my schools have enjoyed the songs so far. Year 6, usually too cool to sing in hymn practice, loved the Spanish planets song!
If you'd like to create your own songs, I'd recommend using a small pot of vocabulary and making them repetitive. Putting question forms in is also a good opportunity to practise those.
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| ChatGPT's take on my musings about the core content! |
The Curriculum and Research Review 2025 (CAR) was published last week on 5th November. I have already written at some length about what it means for primary languages.
The first of the two recommendations for primary languages was:
a minimum core content for French, German and Spanish would provide greater clarity and consistency, especially for non-specialist teachers. Covering commonly occurring phonics, vocabulary and grammar, this should align closely with the content and teaching approaches at secondary and thus build more securely the foundations of knowledge for success at Key Stage 4 and beyond more securely. This should support a smoother transition into Key Stage 3. .... With a shared understanding of what constitutes 'substantial progress' in a language, secondary schools would be better equipped to build on students' prior learning.
The Government has agreed to put this into place. I have been pondering what this "minimum core content" will comprise. The second sentence of the above quotation is, I think, important: "Covering commonly occurring phonics, vocabulary and grammar". I would argue that it needs to be more far-reaching than this and not just vocabulary, grammar and phonics.
Here are my thoughts so far on what I think should be in the minimum core content:
Intercultural Understanding (IU)
Children need to have an understanding of the language that they are learning and how it fits into the global picture. We need to encourage curiosity about world languages and where they are spoken, and we need children to appreciate that other languages may be different, but they are not bad, wrong, or strange. All languages are valid. I think that children should be able to:
Much has been made in the media of the significant changes and new additions to the curriculum proposed by the review. The recommendations for Languages could be said to be quite insignificant compared to the sometimes quite sweeping changes proposed for other subjects. I've read the review through a Languages lens (and through the eyes of a teacher of primary languages for 17 years) to see what the implications are for us as teachers of Languages, particularly in the primary sector.
Primary languages have a secure place in the curriculum
In the months leading up to the publication of the CAR I had received messages and had had discussions with professional colleagues about the potential fate of primary languages. It was rumoured that they would be scrapped.
I was very pleased and relieved to see, therefore, these words on page 24 of the review:
We strongly affirm the value of all the subjects in the national curriculum and basic curriculum. Each plays a vital role in equipping young people with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the world, while engaging and contributing to our society and culture, and pursuing their individual aspirations. Whether academic, creative, vocational or physical, every subject contributes to a rich and balanced education. ..... The current subject architecture provides a strong foundation, introduces subjects to young people at the appropriate stage, and allows them to pursue their interests once they have experienced the full range of subjects.
In addition, on page 34 it says:
Subject-specific knowledge remains the best investment in preparing young people for these challenges and opportunities: Science and Maths will remain crucial, as will an understanding of communication and culture, through the humanities, languages, and the arts.
And on page 44:
We also seek to guarantee access to a broad and rich primary curriculum, including subjects such as Citizenship, Languages, and Music.
It goes on to say on page 30 that:
Access to the national curriculum should remain an expectation and an entitlement for all children and young people, including those in specialist and alternative provision.
I'm pleased to see that it is reinforcing the fact that all subjects on the national curriculum, Languages in Key Stage 2 in my case, should be taught to all children. So Language learning should happen regularly, and all children should be accessing it. The CAR stresses the importance (for example on pages 30 and 33) of inclusion and not limiting children's life chances by denying them the opportunity to access certain parts of the curriculum.
The Government, in its response to the CAR, agrees that Each subject in the national curriculum plays a vital role in a child's education. (page 8)
It's a little disappointing that Languages are still the only subject not taught in Key Stage 1 (see pages 18 and 19 of the review which shows the national curriculum overview). The argument has always been that starting at age 7 brings us in line with our European neighbours.
The Executive Summary of the review says:
The statutory guidance for the current national curriculum* says that it is 'just one element in the education of every child'; it was not intended to take up an entire school day. (page 9)
*Aims of the national curriculum, section 3.2
One of the difficulties facing Languages in Key Stage 2 is fitting it into the school week. The Language Trends reports each year ask how long lessons are in different schools. In many primary schools Languages lessons are 30, maybe 45, minutes long, but it is generally agreed that in order to make the "substantial progress in one language" required by the national curriculum lessons should be one hour a week.
I was unaware that the national curriculum should fit into the school week with room to spare, simply because all subjects are squeezed, and every available minute is used to fit all the subjects in. I don't know of any primary schools where time is left free during the school week for enrichment activities. We hear of schools where Languages can't be fitted into the curriculum on a regular basis. If more time is needed during the week for, say, English or maths, it is often Languages that are sacrificed.
Page 30 of the CAR says:
By ensuring that the volume of content in the national curriculum is appropriate for the teaching time that is available, we aim to give schools sufficient time to consolidate learning, as well as the space to provide the enrichment activities and life skills that prepare young people for life and work.
It will be very interesting to see, come the revised curriculum in 2028, how this will happen. In the Government response to the CAR, it says that Ofsted will consider how schools are meeting enrichment expectations when judging the personal development grade (page 11).
The allocation of little time to Languages (less than 30 minutes a week in Key Stage 2 and lesson than two hours a week in secondary) is reported as a challenge for language teaching (page 88), despite evidence showing that more time is needed to make significant progress.
The CAR has a focus on oracy, which it says incorporates speaking, listening and communication (page 42). Amongst its recommendations are introducing an oracy framework to support practice and to complement the existing frameworks for Reading and Writing.
This clearly has significant overlap with our work in Languages, so hopefully speaking, listening and communication in a language other than English will feature in the new framework.
The Government has agreed, in its response to the CAR, to create the oracy framework, to support primary schools to ensure that their pupils become confident, fluent speakers and listeners by the end of key stage 2. I'm sure that this would translate well into Languages as well.
The CAR acknowledges that:
... many of the foundation subjects in the national curriculum lack detail, which means that teachers are unclear about what is sufficient in terms of depth or breadth. This lack of clarity also leads to inconsistent coverage of content across schools, making it challenging to ensure knowledge is built coherently and sequentially across the key stages. (page 44)
This has certainly been the case with Key Stage 2 Languages since their introduction as a compulsory subject in 2014. The Programme of Study is vague and doesn't make clear exactly what the "substantial progress in one language" should look like. It has therefore been interpreted differently by different providers, schools and teachers.
On page 49 it clarifies that:
...greater specificity should not mean greater volume of content and should not unnecessarily impede schools' or teachers' autonomy. Foundation subjects' Programmes of Study should be drafted with a minimalist approach to added detail, carefully balanced with the need to ensure the greater specificity which aids conceptual mastery, continuity and coherence.
One concern with having a list of specified content is that certain schools might see it as something they don't have to teach regularly in all four years of Key Stage 2, building up and embedding the language over a longer period of time. Rather they may decide to teach it in one block, for example in Year 6 after SATs, a pattern that has been seen in the past with the current curriculum. While time allocations will still not be applied, it will have to be made clear that Languages lessons should take place regularly over four years, just like all the other Foundation subjects.
There is also the possibility that, presented with a list of specified content, certain schools or teachers may just teach the list. To clarify this issue the CAR says, on page 51:
The national curriculum in intended as a baseline rather than imposing limits, and it is the expertise of our teachers that brings it to life in the classroom.
It also states the following curriculum principle:
The refreshed national curriculum should ensure the professional autonomy of teachers is maintained, making sure that greater specificity does not substantially restrict teachers' flexibility to choose lesson content and how to teach it. (page 51)
In the Languages-specific section, on page 90, the CAR says that it agrees that:
a minimum core content for French, German and Spanish would provide greater clarity and consistency, especially for non-specialist teachers. Covering commonly occurring phonics, vocabulary and grammar, this should align closely with the content and teaching approaches at secondary and thus build more securely the foundations of knowledge for success at Key Stage 4 and beyond more securely. This should support a smoother transition into Key Stage 3. .... With a shared understanding of what constitutes 'substantial progress' in a language, secondary schools would be better equipped to build on students' prior learning. (page 90)
The creation of a list of minimum core content was a recommendation of the 2019 White Paper, and something that has been agreed for some time would facilitate better outcomes for primary Languages. It is pleasing to see, therefore, the following recommendation of the CAR:
We recommend that the Government updates the Key Stage 2 Languages Programme of Study to include a clearly defined minimum core content for French, German and Spanish to standardise expectations about what 'substantial progress in one language' looks like. (page 91)
Page 45 of the CAR talks about the transition between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, the move from primary school to secondary school at age 11, from a general point of view. Those of us who teach Languages in either primary or secondary schools are well aware of the problems of transition. There is little communication between the two sectors and more often than not children start the language again from scratch in Year 7, regardless of whether or not the primary schools have passed on information about the Key Stage 2 language learning. Speaking personally, I always send information about my Year 6s to the secondary schools that they are transferring to. I usually receive few replies or acknowledgements from the secondary schools. Language learning is only compulsory in England from age 7 to age 14, so it is crucial that we make these few years count, and effective transition is vital for this. However I have certainly been talking about and advising on transition for nearly 20 years, and we are no further forward. In fact I would say that we have taken a backward step.
I found the following very interesting:
Stakeholders frequently report that secondary schools tend to plan their Key Stage 3 curriculum backwards from GCSE requirements rather than forward from Key Stage 2 learning, resulting in repetition and leading to disengagement, especially among higher-attaining students. (page 45)
This certainly sheds a light on the problems that we face with Languages. A more prescribed content for Key Stage 2 will hopefully go a long way to helping secondary schools to look at their Year 7 curriculum, taking into account prior learning in Key Stage 2 and not assuming that Year 7s are beginner learners. The CAR has recommended that the EBacc is discontinued, which has caused concern amongst the secondary Languages community. Learners have been encouraged to take a language for GCSE in order to improve their school's EBacc figures. In the future, effective transition will contribute to not switching off learners who are bored by repeating Key Stage 2 learning and don't see themselves learning anything new.
Transition is at the centre of the second of the primary languages specific recommendations:
We recommend that the Government should explore the potential benefits of a coordinated approach in their local areas to the main language taught from Key Stage 2 through to Key Stage 4, taking account of their local context and priorities. The Government should look to encourage this activity where appropriate. (page 91)
I fear, with the system that we have of local authority maintained schools and many separate multi-academy trusts, that the system may be too disjointed to support this.
As an afterthought, I think that the opportunity could have been taken here to rename the subject so that it is the same in both primary and secondary (it's currently Foreign Languages in Key Stage 2 and Modern Foreign Languages in Key Stage 3) and so that we can dispense with the word 'foreign' and its negative connotations. Having the same name across the key stages would go a little way to unifying the two sectors.
Another theme of the CAR is making horizontal links across subjects to highlight where content in one area relies on content in another (page 49). In order to achieve and facilitate this, the review recommends that:
[The Government] develops the national curriculum as a digital product that can support teachers to navigate content easily and to see and make connections across key stages and disciplines. (page 52)
This could potentially be very useful for Languages. Stakeholders in other subjects would finally be able to see in black and white how many different areas and themes language teaching addresses. The digitalised curriculum has been agreed by the Government in their response.
The Government, in its response to the CAR, has agreed to refresh the programmes of study for each curriculum subject in line with the Review's recommendations. It agrees with the two recommendations which refer directly to primary Languages (page 33).
They have also added two further intentions for Languages that were not part of the CAR. The first is:
We will explore the feasibility of developing a new qualification which enables all pupils to have their achievements acknowledged when they are ready rather than at fixed points. We will learn from models such as the Languages Ladder .... We will optimise the use of technology to minimise teacher workload and make assessment more engaging for pupils. We are working closely with stakeholders to establish the viability of such a qualification, making sure it meets the needs of schools and pupils, before making any decision on whether to introduce it. (page 33)
So this sounds like predominantly an assessment for the end of Key Stage 3 (age 14). It does not make clear if the end of Key Stage 2 will be included. This could work well for children who do a different language in secondary school to the one they did in primary. In my opinion the Government will have to ensure that the qualification has real currency in young people's future workplaces and that they are understood by employers.
The second is:
We will explore how AI and education technology (edtech) can support stronger outcomes in language education, including exploring how these tools can help deliver consistent curriculum content and support more coherent language provision across key stages, as well as reduce teacher workload.
The new and revised curriculum will be published in 2027 for first teaching in 2028.
The Government will continue to invest in the NCLE and its online portal but hasn't made clear if the remit of NCLE will therefore reach down into Key Stage 2.
We will wait to see who will be asked to lead on the renovation of the programme of study and the creation of the list of minimum core content. NCLE, in their reaction to the CAR for Languages, says:
We are looking forward to working with the Department for Education to redefine the core language learning in primary schools
I hope that this isn't a done deal, and that other teachers, organisations and stakeholders will be able to have some input as well.
This week I have been reflecting on how I teach the children in my classes who have special needs and disabilities (SEND). They are exposed to the same input as the other children, mostly listening and speaking in the first instance, with a significant phonics component, then moving on to reading and finally writing. When it comes their speaking and writing output, they have support in the form of knowledge organisers, sentence builders and other paper-based support, as well as extra support from me as they need it, and, if we are lucky, from a teaching assistant.
Until comparatively recently, the way that we catered for a
wide range of abilities in the classroom was to offer multiple differentiated
tasks. This was clearly time consuming
for teachers and often difficult to implement effectively and successfully.
Teachers were often juggling different curricula, and different
tasks with different levels of challenge, and therefore different expectations
and outcomes. Differentiation frequently
limited opportunities for achievement for some groups of children, and was responsible for setting low expectations
of children with learning difficulties.
Adaptive and responsive teaching maintains high
expectations for all children at both the planning and the teaching stages; it
doesn’t make any preconceptions about who the lower ability children are and
who are the higher ability. It’s more
sustainable than differentiation and ultimately not such a burden on the
teacher. It has now gained much more traction and is
embedded in teachers’ Early Career Framework.
Let’s dive more deeply into how adaptive and responsive
teaching might work in the primary languages classroom.
Adaptive and responsive teaching aims to meet the needs of
all children. All children should meet
the high expectations that we set, and all children are able to keep up so that
nobody is left behind and needs to catch up.
It’s vital to recap prior knowledge each lesson, going back
as far as necessary to make connections between prior learning and the new
learning. We can’t assume that those
connections and the memory will be there automatically. We need to ensure that all the children are
in the same place for starting the new content.
Revisiting prior learning will ensure that all children begin the new
learning on the same playing field, ready to build on those foundations. It will also enable you to challenge any
misconceptions that arise.
Language lessons are often far apart. Even lessons a week apart will mean that
children have had a week to forget the previous week’s content. Every language lesson should begin with some
kind of recap or revisiting of prior learning.
Even if you are starting a new topic or unit, an effective spiral
curriculum means that there will be some aspect of the new learning in the new
unit that the children have seen before somewhere. This revisiting often takes the form of
speaking and listening activities, but reading and writing activities can also
be used to repeat and practise prior learning.
Ensure that the order of the units in your scheme of work
allows you to refer back to learning in previous units as well as previous
lessons, and also ensure that their order and your time allocation doesn’t oblige
the learning to move on too quickly without sufficient revisiting and
reinforcement taking place. The language
needs to be truly embedded before you move on.
Some ideas for revisiting prior learning:
All these activities will help you to formatively assess the
class’s learning and also the learning and understanding of individuals, so
that you can start to identify where further support will be necessary.
It’s also important that children are aware of the bigger
picture: what are the learning intentions of that lesson, and how does it fit
into the bigger picture of that unit?
How does it build on what they already know? Tell children what you want them to know and
what you want them to be able to do. It’s
likely that this introduction to the lesson will include mention of the three
pillars of vocabulary, grammar and phonics, of course in child-friendly terms.
As children come onto the language production phase of the
learning, whether it be speaking or writing, it’s important that they know what
success sounds like or looks like.
Modelling the activities is therefore very important.
Modelling an activity:
One of the key differences between differentiation and
adaptive and responsive teaching is that teachers should pitch the lesson high
and then provide appropriate support for those who need it in order to enable them
to reach the goals. Children should all
have the same high-quality tasks but with varied scaffolds. Such scaffolds help all children to access
the challenging and ambitious content and make the lesson inherently
inclusive. All children will have the opportunity
to be successful. Ideally any support
that you provide should be temporary and should be gradually withdrawn as the
children become more confident.
Some kinds of support, in no particular order:
As has already been said, time is often short in language
lessons, and therefore every activity and task that we plan must have a clear
purpose within the framework of the lesson.
Each one needs to allow children to demonstrate what they have learned,
that they can achieve a given step of the lesson so that you can proceed to the
next one. They also need to be planned
to have a clear ‘product’ so that you can see clearly what they can do and what
they have understood. This in turn will
provide evidence for you in case you need to respond and adjust your teaching.
Adaptive and responsive teaching is all about making adjustments
to your teaching methods, materials and language, based on real time assessment
of the children’s understanding and their needs moving forward. It is rooted in and reliant on solid
formative assessment. In language
learning we need to adapt our explanations and questions to suit the needs of
individual learners, their levels and how they learn best. Specialist language teachers, often secondary
trained, will have the experience and the subject knowledge to do this. However the majority of the teachers of
foreign languages in Key Stage 2 (children age 7-11) are non-specialist, and
may well not have the confidence or the knowledge to be able to do this. Your scheme of work, if you are
non-specialist, should include comprehensive information and explanations to
help you to understand the content before you teach it. It would also be ideal if it were to have
alternative explanations or suggestions in the case of having to make adjustments. Adapting from one lesson to the next might be
more straightforward, but how to non-specialist teachers feel about having to
adapt in the moment? There is clearly a
case for additional training and CPD here.
It has already been mentioned that the learning should be
built up in small steps, checking for understanding at the end of each of those
small steps before proceeding to the next one.
Each lesson will comprise a small step within the bigger picture, and
each lesson will also comprise a series of even smaller steps to arrive at that
objective. It’s crucial to check for
understanding at the end of each step and sample the children’s responses at each
stage of the learning. This will show
quickly how well the children have understood and absorbed the learning. Identify the activities in your scheme of
work which will enable you to do this.
It's important that we foster in our classrooms a positive
learning environment which has a culture of safety and support, where children
feel comfortable to take risks and make mistakes. This will reduce their anxiety and motivate
them to have a go.
To summarise: adaptive and responsive teaching requires
children to all be taught the same ambitious curriculum, using the same tasks
with the same level of challenge and high expectations, but children will have
appropriate support to enable them to achieve.
Further reading:
Adaptive Teaching: Moving Beyond Differentiation for MoreEffective Learning, Dr Katy Bloom
Spinning the plates: Responsive and Adaptive teaching inthe mixed MFL classroom, Esmeralda Salgado
Adaptive Teaching: Understanding the Barriers andEnablers, Imogen Barber
What does inclusive teaching look like? Adaptive and responsive teaching strategies,
Matt Bromley