Languages
BackOur vision is to offer students at Chiswick School a passport to new languages and cultures, both within the classroom and beyond. Alongside our core offer of French and German, we provide opportunities for our most able linguists to pick up Latin. We also celebrate the range of world languages spoken in our community, through super-curricular events and the community languages qualifications. Our approach is firmly rooted in the three pillars of vocabulary, phonics and grammar, which are embedded through Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing activities in all lessons. Mindful of cognitive load on learners, our sequencing is based on embedding high-frequency vocabulary through a spiral curriculum and regular retrieval practice.
We are passionate about bringing the French and German-speaking world to life for our students through engaging and inclusive resources, which, as well as developing their language, capture their interest and develop their understanding of a range of different cultures through music, film, art and literature. We are committed to providing all students with an opportunity to understand and communicate in the target language. We support our students to be resilient in the face of challenges, but rigorous in their ability to learn from their mistakes. Languages lessons at Chiswick stimulate our students’ intellectual curiosity towards new grammatical rules and vocabulary, whilst developing their literacy and oracy, recognising rigorous phonics teaching as the starting point for this.
We want our students to engage with language as a living, organic phenomenon which they can shape for their own self-expression. Beyond the classroom, we provide additional opportunities to celebrate and encourage language learning across the school, through collaboration with other departments, clubs and visits, and trips abroad. This includes celebrating International Languages Week with encouraging the staff at Chiswick School to showcase the languages they can speak, visiting the BFI to build our students cultural capital through watching French and German movies and building strong connections with Languages for All, a programme that extends our students learning of language beyond the curriculum we offer.
Curriculum Team Leader
Ianthe Greenwood
Please click on the links below to view the Curriculum Maps for Languages.
German
Year 8 Curriculum MapYear 9 Curriculum MapYear 10 Curriculum Map