Modern Foreign Languages

The Languages Department at Ridgeway offers both French and Spanish taught by 2 enthusiastic linguists who want to pass onto their students a love of languages and an understanding of their importance in today’s society.

We aim to equip our students with the skills necessary for an increasingly competitive job market where we believe it is no longer acceptable or practical to be monolingual.

Our students enjoy stimulating and challenging lessons delivered through a variety of teaching styles.

We have the following ambitions for our students:

We aim to develop their ability to analyse language and as a consequence have a better understanding of their own language.
We aim to develop their critical thinking skills and use these skills in the application of grammar in the foreign language.
We inform our young linguists about the roots of words encouraging them to think about their own language and develop their understanding of how languages are continually evolving.
We strive to develop their cultural awareness and appreciation through film, extracts of foreign literature and opportunities to travel abroad.
We firmly believe that a greater understanding of other languages and cultures can breed tolerance, empathy, adaptability and consideration for others as well as a willingness and confidence to overcome communication barriers.

Welcome to the Modern Foreign Languages Department – Subject Leader: Ms M Lewin

Key Stage 3

Year 7 French

Your Family: Self family and friends, countries and nationalities, descriptions of family members.

Where you live: Places in the town, describing where you live, describing where you are going to live in the future.

Free time: Your favourite sports and activities, weather, describing what you do at the weekend and what you are going to do.

Life at school: School subjects and opinions, time and timetable, uniform, description of the school day.

Year 7 Spanish

My Life: Describing yourself.

My family and friends: Describing your friends and where you live

My Town: Describing your town and what you can do there

My School: Saying what subjects you do and describing your school day

Free Time: Saying what you do in your free time

Year 8 French

Free Time and Technology: Discussing how you like to spend you free time. Describing what you did last weekend.

Shopping: Clothes shopping and what you like to buy with your pocket money

Daily Routine: Describing your daily routine using reflexive verbs

Invitations: Inviting friends out, making excuses not to go, saying where you are going and discussing a shopping trip.

Year 8 Spanish

My Holidays: Where you went on holiday and what you did

My Life: Describing your favourite music and TV programmes and saying what you did yesterday

Food: What you like to eat, preparing for a party

Going Out: Arranging to go out and what you like to wear

Year 9 French

We focus on key topics in greater detail while practicing key grammar points such as a range of tenses, object pronouns, negatives, connectives and key constructions.

Healthy Eating: What foods you should eat and why?

Smoking and drugs: The consequences of smoking and taking drugs.

Holidays: Where do you normally go on holiday and where did you go last year? Why are holidays important? Would you prefer to go on holidays with family or friends? If you won the lottery where would you go?

Year 9 Spanish

My Life: What you do, have done and are going to do during the week

Work: What kind of job would you like to do

Healthy Eating: Describing a healthy lifestyle

My rights: Children’s rights, fair trade and recycling

Year 7 Spanish Curriculum Map 2022 – 2023

Year 8 Spanish Curriculum Map 2022 – 2023

Year 9 Spanish Curriculum Map 2022 – 2023

Year 7 French Curriculum Map 2022-23

Year 8 French Curriculum Map 2022-23

Year 9 French Curriculum Map 2022-23

Key Stage 4

the following topics will be studied:

Year 10 & 11 French and Spanish – here is an outline of what we study for GCSE, focusing on key grammar points and expanding our knowledge of grammar:

Family and Friends: describing yourself, your family, your friends and expanding your knowledge to describing the qualities of a good friend, getting on with family members and describing a typical day out.

Holidays: describing where you normally go and what you do, the importance of holidays, describing a memorable holiday and where you would go if you won the lottery.

School: describing your school, the school rules and uniform along with the subjects you are studying. How you could improve your school and describing a school trip

Work: what you would like to do after school, your work experience, what would be your ideal job, would you take a year out to do voluntary work.

The environment: what are the main environmental problems in your area, what do you do to help the environment.

Town: describing where you live and what could a tourist do in your town. What are the advantages/disadvantages of your town and would you prefer to live in the town or in the countryside.