Easy and effective tracking
Insights from a Primary MFL Consultant
I’m Kate Percival, a primary teacher and MFL consultant here at Primary Languages Network. In this blog series, I’ll be sharing top tips and inspirational ideas from the schools and coordinators I’ve been working with. Read on to find out more.
Inspirational work at Inspire!
I recently visited Inspire Academy in Manchester and discussed many aspects of their languages provision which is coordinated by MFL Lead Samantha Poole. Here is just a snippet of what we discussed.
‘Floor books’ for showcasing
Samantha showed me some wonderful ‘floor books’ which showcased examples of work in listening, reading, writing, cultural experience and cross-curricular learning. They included photographs of games taking place in language lessons - a great way to evidence whole-class activities. We talked about big books complementing the work shown in pupils’ workbooks, which will demonstrate progress made by individuals, especially if the same book is continued throughout the school. Always a good idea to keep a couple of books back at the end of the year in case you are asked for evidence at the start of the Autumn term!
At-a-glance tracking and assessment
Traffic light tracking
Also included in the floor books was a really smart way of assessing pupils against each lesson objective. A chart of children’s names down the side with lesson objectives across the top allowed teachers to use a straight-forward traffic light system to dot green, amber or red against each child’s name. This is done across all subjects at the school straight after the lesson and provides a time-efficient way of building up a snapshot of assessment on one A4 page – brilliant! . It is always great to see coordinator’s use their initiative when it comes to their subject, making it work for their school context.
Supporting staff
Staff teach 30/40 minutes MFL lessons using the Click2Teach scheme of work and feel supported by the resources and CPD on offer from their PLN membership. We discussed how language learning can be embedded into daily school life more and I shared the new Classroom Instructions PowerPoint (available in French and Spanish on the VLE) which contain audio files to support non-specialists. I suggested emailing colleagues with one phrase per week so that over time both teachers and pupils can build up their bank of instructions and saying and hearing them throughout the school day. Simple is often most effective when it comes to introducing something new to routine and can have huge benefits when done regularly for improving MFL recall. Colleagues will also appreciate it if you drip-feed support and advice rather than overloading them at the beginning of term with your wishes!
As a relatively new school, Inspire certainly inspired me with some modern ways of thinking. But what shone through was Samantha’s passion to support both children and colleagues in driving MFL forward in her school.
MFL consultancy sessions can run virtually or in person and can cover areas such as: starting out with primary languages in your school and putting together coordinator documentation, preparing for an MFL deep dive or looking for the next challenge. You will be given a full report of the discussion which includes working points and this can be shared with your Head teacher. Also included is a shorter catch-up session at an agreed future date where we can celebrate progress made and support with anything further.
If you would like to book Kate for a consultancy session, click the button below or contact sylvia@primarylanguages.network