"Let us protect with love all that God has given us"

  1. Our Curriculum
  2. Ancient and Modern Languages

Ancient and Modern Languages

 We are a very diverse school linguistically!  A majority of our pupils are bilingual or multilingual.  We work hard to build on this and celebrate this diversity, whilst also giving pupils who are monolingual, a solid grounding for learning a new language.  In Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and 2) we celebrate languages spoken by children, giving them the opportunity to share their home languages with their classes.  In Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) we have introduced Latin.  Year 5 and 6 are continuing with French, but this will be phased out to include Latin in the full Key Stage 2.

 

Academic Excellence 

Our intent for the teaching of Latin is to teach children in a rich, balanced and progressive curriculum, using Latin to support vocabulary development, a deeper understanding of grammatical structures in English and foreign languages and for children to investigate the derivatives of language alongside historical stories. The teaching of Latin follows a clear progression in line with age-related expectation. Here at St Joseph’s enhancing children’s vocabulary and promoting a love of reading and language is at the heart of everything we do. 

Diversity 

We are so lucky at St Joseph’s to have such a wide and diverse community in which 75% of our students are speakers of another language in addition to English.  Language lies at the heart of ideas about individual identity and community and learning another language can do a great deal to shape children’s ideas in this critical area as well as giving them a new perspective on their own language. 

Since Latin lies at the root of 60% of English words, studying it has a beneficial impact on development of English vocabulary across a range of subjects – such as science, geography and history – and language skills in general. 

Action 

We will give children the opportunity to act as a result of their learning in French and Latin.  We will encourage children to see the grammar, context and vocabulary of their French and Latin curriculum in our broader curriculum, and to use this knowledge and understanding to decipher words, build understanding and aid comprehension. 

 

As St Joseph’s begins its journey to the teaching of Latin as a foreign language we will roll out the curriculum as follows for each year group. Future years will then follow the last plan. Yearly reviews will take place to ensure the teaching of each chapter is sufficient for each year group. 

French - Year 6

We are proud to include French in our curriculum for UKS2 (Years 6).  Year 6 continues this until they leave.

Latin - Year 3, 4 and 5

We are very proud to have also introduced Latin to our curriculum for Years 3, 4 and 5.    https://www.minimuslatin.co.uk/

 

 

Rollout for 2023-2024 

We are in the process of re-designing our Latin curriculum to include both the Minimus scheme and the Maximus scheme as our resources and also Roman history.  

 

 

We are finalising our Latin Curriculum overview for the website.  We will upload it soon.