Mixed-age Year 5/6
Upper Key Stage 2 French lessons tailored to the needs of a mixed-age setting. The lessons follow a 'Cycle A and Cycle B' format to ensure progression of skills and knowledge across the age range. Please see our mixed-age long-term plan for the advised unit order delivery.
Mixed-age scheme guidance
The French mixed-age scheme is taught as a two-year cycle (Cycle A and Cycle B). Pupils can start with either cycle as both cycles reflect the same key knowledge and skills to ensure progression.
Pupils in Year 5 can start the Year 5/6 cycle even if they have only completed one year of the Year 3/4 cycle. The first unit of both cycles has been created to allow children to revisit cognates, create simple statements and explore word order, numbers and opinions. This supports all children, but especially if they haven’t completed the Year 3/4 cycle.
The topic vocabulary identified in blue text on the standard version of the Progression of knowledge and skills document are words the children may not have learned if units don’t appear in the cycle they completed.
See the Mixed-age long-term plan for more information about teaching French to mixed-age classes.
Choose your unit
Y5/6 Cycle A
Learning adjectives for describing people’s physical appearance and their personality. Creating simple sentences ensuring that the adjectives agree with the gender of the noun.
This UKS2 mixed-age unit draws on vocabulary and grammar learned in Years 3, 4 and 5, introduces family and relations vocabulary, the possessive adjective, my, and how to express likes and dislikes.
Learning vocabulary to describe items of clothing, along with the different forms of the indefinite article. Incorporating previous learning about colour into their descriptions of clothing and recapping the concept of adjectival agreement. Expressing their opinions about outfits in French.
Learning phrases to describe the weather and vocabulary for the compass points; counting from 1-100 in multiples of ten; combining this knowledge to make statements about the temperature in different parts of France and deliver a weather forecast.
Discovering the many French-speaking countries, giving and following directions in French and discussing climate using comparative language.
A mixed-age Y5/6 unit. The children learn to use a combination of present and near-future tenses, and become familiar with holiday-related vocabulary around packing a suitcase and planning a journey. They explore which countries they might visit and why and ultimately research and plan a holiday to France.
Y5/6 Cycle B
Using language detective skills to spot cognates; learning transport-related vocabulary and constructing sentences using parts of the verb ‘aller‘ with prepositions.
Learning about surroundings and discovering the fascinating world of different homes; exploring different types of houses and building vocabulary and pronunciation skills; describing homes and neighbourhoods in French.
Learning vocabulary to name musical instruments and types of music; expressing opinions about music by forming extended sentences using conjunctions and adjectives; learning about a famous French music festival and French-speaking musicians and adapting model sentences to create a profile for a musician.
Learning to identify the infinitive form of verbs and subject pronouns; grouping French verbs into -er, -ir and -re categories; learning the -er regular verb endings; practising with a set of regular action verbs children discover that not all verbs are regular and learn the foundation verbs ‘avoir’ and ‘être’ and finally children produce a short piece of creative writing to demonstrate their learning.
Learning directional, transport, and town vocabulary together with prepositional phrases, the children describe where places are in a town. They plan a trip to France and become tourist guides, giving reasoned opinions on which places in town to visit; finally, the children create a written description of a town.
Conjugating the verb aller – to go, identifying correct prepositions, learning sports vocabulary, expressing preferences plus the infinitive; revisiting nouns for countries and learning how to contract articles when using the verb faire.
