French

French is taught throughout the school by our specialist French native teacher. At RPPS, we believe that introducing a language at an early stage has many benefits including improving literacy skills, developing self-esteem and widening cultural awareness.

In the Lower School, emphasis is placed on spoken language. Our children study French through stories, games, role play, rhymes and songs. Language acquisition is introduced initially through key vocabulary related to a topic of interest and gradually built-upon with short phrases and simple conversations, as well as through an exploration of French culture and lifestyle. As verbal fluency increases, children are introduced to the rules of spelling and grammar necessary to develop their reading and writing skills. In order to capitalise upon the language skills of the children, lessons are complemented by a range of extra-curricular events for each year group.

Recent highlights include a French breakfast, storytelling workshop, a picnic with a local French school, visiting the French Institute, a poetry competition, workshops with our sister schools, a croissant-making morning, and Pen Pal exchange with a French primary school in Lille.

Material used for lessons is engaging and caters for the children’s learning styles. French homework is smoothly introduced at the start of the Upper School, with online tasks, then becomes more formal and is completed with an optional enrichment programme as they move up.

Learning a foreign language is not only fun, but it also promotes cultural awareness, global citizenship and supports communication. Our children are future citizens of the world and languages are necessary tools in our multilingual societies.