French is introduced to all the boys from Years 2 to 8. The aim is to instil a love of language acquisition at an early age with a particular emphasis in developing French sounds and phonemes in Year 2, and nasal sounds and diphthongs in Year 3. In Year 4, the boys are confident with reading unseen passages in the target language with a particular focus on their sound formations. Emphasis is also put on understanding basic French grammar and regular verb conjugations while making full use of their target language to develop their speaking skills. The boys are able to read, write, speak and listen to French extracts in readiness for their move into the middle section of school.  

In Years 5 and 6, the boys delve into their Common Entrance and Scholarship grammar topics. Grammar, conjugation and sentence building is core to the syllabus, with the aim to further develop their language learning. The boys can identify irregular verbs and start exploring complex grammar and conjugation through mnemonics. The four MFL skills remain very much at the centre of both teaching and learning.   

In Years 7 and 8, the boys have an understanding of complex grammar and can decipher between the present, past, future and conditional tenses all in preparation for Common Entrance and scholarships, with the addition of iGCSE subject content for the boys taking the scholarship route. Various in-school and online tools are used to give them a breath of materials to work with and stimulate learning. By the end of Year 8, the boys have completely mastered their language acquisition and are at ease with respective senior school exam papers (Level 2 Common Entrance French and scholarship papers).   

Boys with a natural aptitude for the French language follow the bilingual program from Years 3 to 8. The program is tailored to ensure the boys are getting the best out of their learning through termly class readers, text-based reading comprehensions, current affairs listening extracts as well as subject based conversational French.