FACULTY LEADER: Mrs J Barber

The Modern Foreign Languages curriculum at Prince Henry's is rich and varied, reflecting the important role languages and the school’s global ethos play in the curriculum. The team of nine highly skilled members of staff is supported by native speaker Foreign Language Assistants and the faculty is accommodated in a specialist suite of rooms. All staff are dual linguists, and many are trilingual. Courses in French, Spanish, German and Mandarin Chinese are offered through the curriculum; however, each year the faculty also supports a small group of students wishing to take exams in their heritage languages.

Languages are an important part in the life of Prince Henry’s and play a key role in developing the international ethos of our students. With the numerous trips, visits and exchanges organised by the faculty, both at home and abroad, students are given opportunities to meet a range of native speakers and put their language skills to good use. In a normal year, we would usually host nearly 100 international visitors in school from visiting schools, who have all been in lessons and worked alongside our students, enhancing their cultural capital and allowing them to put their linguistic skills to good use.

With staff from the faculty working in many of our local feeder primary schools, links for transition are strong and help students to settle quickly into KS3 MFL lessons. Many of our students choose to become dual linguists when they come to select their options in KS4, and we have numerous former students studying a range of languages at universities, as well as working or studying abroad as part of their studies. 

KS3 Curriculum

In Year 7, students usually build upon their prior language learning in French or Spanish, as appropriate. These are the two core languages and all students continue to study the same language throughout KS3 and KS4. In Year 8, all students take up German as their second MFL. In addition, all Year 8 students follow a short module in Mandarin Chinese which they can then continue in after-school lessons from Year 9.

In Year 7, students are taught in mixed ability groups until Christmas and are then banded, based on teacher assessments and end of module tests. From Year 8, students are set by ability based on end of module tests / progress throughout the year and teacher assessment.

SPANISH	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3
Year 7	Introducing myself My free time activities The weather	My sporting activities My school My family	My home and my town Ordering in a café My plans for the weekend
Year 8	A past holiday Technology Music	Television Food and drink Arranging to go out	Fashion Holiday plans Asking for directions
Year 9	Things I like Cinema Jobs and careers	Healthy lifestyle Illness Children's rights	Our environment Staying with a Spanish family Shopping for souvenirs

KS3 Spanish Learning Journey.

FRENCH	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3
Year 7	Introducing myself Describing myself and others My school	My sporting activities My other free time activities Life at home	My local area Ordering in a café Talking about future plans
Year 8	A past holiday Festivals and celebrations Food and drink	Future school trips TV / cinema preferences Leisure activities	Future school trips TV / cinema preferences Leisure activities
Year 9	Free time and friends Birthday celebrations What you're going to wear	Future work plans Life in the future What life was like in the past	Food drink The environment The francophone world

KS3 French Learning Journey.

GERMAN	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3
Year 8	Introductions The things I like My life with my family	My free time My life online School life	Local Area + Cologne Buying snacks and shopping Future holiday plans
Year 9	Holidays Innsbruck and Hamburg Films and TV preferences	Reading and media Food and healthy living Daily Routines	Directions Meeting up with others Fairtrade and German labels

KS3 German Learning Journey.

KS4 Curriculum

Prince Henry’s is pleased to be able to offer all three languages at GCSE and A Level. At GCSE, in French and Spanish students are allocated to a set according to ability. German is taught in mixed ability groups for those students who have chosen to take German as an additional language for GCSE. All three languages follow the AQA GCSE course.

KS4 French Learning Journey.

KS4 German Learning Journey.

KS5 Curriculum

Prince Henry’s is pleased to be able to offer all three languages A Level. At Key Stage 5, all three subjects are offered with additional support and individual/small group lessons with our Foreign Language Assistants.

Assessment

From Key Stage 3 onwards, little and often low stakes testing is integral to all lessons in MFL. From the instantaneous pieces of short verbal feedback on work in lessons, the correction of pronunciation in spoken answers and the ongoing feedback and monitoring of progress through the marking of classwork, longer written/spoken tasks and end of module assessments; assessment is used in a wide variety of ways to help embed knowledge and shape the next steps in the teaching and learning process.

In Key Stage 4, the students are working towards the summative assessments of AQA GCSEs and the structure of the course books around which our courses are taught, provides a mixed range of assessment as learning opportunities as well as formative end of module assessments based on the topics, vocabulary and skills that the students have been studying. Exam style questions are fully integrated into lessons and assessments in Key Stage 4 to help prepare students for the GCSE exams.

Please see the Key Stage 4 Options and Sixth Form pages for details of the KS4 and KS5 courses offered by the MFL faculty. 

Enrichment

The MFL faculty organises a wide programme of foreign visits and exchanges, including trips to France, Spain, Germany and China. Each year, the faculty typically takes away between 250 and 300 students to these countries.

We are especially proud that our range of trips and visits allows all students to be offered the opportunity to travel to France, Germany or Spain in their first year of learning the language. For further details, see our Trips Abroad page.