Secondary MFL teachers - what would you like them to learn in KS2?

[Doraemon]

I am teaching French to KS2 - I took the job on at very short notice part way through this academic year alongside a TA role and have largely been making things up as I go along this year given that the children have done next to nothing before and there was no way year 6, for example, were ever going to achieve the goals set out in the national curriculum guidance in less than a year of 45 minutes a week. My background is in MFL teaching at University Level and EFL at primary and secondary level.

School have confirmed that my contract will be renewed next year, so I'm start to think about more long-term planning - I'd really welcome some input from KS3 MFL teachers about what would be the most useful skills/knowledge for the children to gain at KS2. When they go up to High school they will be randomly assigned to French, German or Spanish.

The school has a fairly deprived catchment - half these children have no idea where France is on a map let alone any prospect of visiting a French speaking country for the foreseeable future. Each class has a couple of kids who speak other languages at home, but most of them are white working class with 3 or 4 generations of the family all living with a mile or so of each other. So far they have on the whole been very enthusiastic (possibly due to the amount of games, songs and food involved....)
My main aim so far (beyond ticking the right National Curriculum based boxes where possible) has been to a) get them enthused about the idea of learning another language, and see it as something fun and achievable, with the hope that this carries over to High school and b) try to give them some skills that will be applicable whatever language they end up with at KS3 - looking at simple sentence structures and understanding that you can't just translate word for word one word at a time, strategies for guessing at meanings of unfamiliar words or picking out the gist, strategies for remembering vocabulary, finding out which end is which of a bilingual dictionary etc etc.
Realistically I am not going to achieve linguistic miracles in 45 minutes a week, but from the perspective of sending them up to High School with some useful skills or knowledge - what would you want them to know by the end of Year 6????? Most of the schemes of work I've seen so far look very topic based, and I'm not convinced that teaching them different random sets of vocabulary (pets, foods, colours etc) is the best use of our time.....

What do you mean by classroom language?

I would like to ask if conversation would be a good addition to the topics covered in ks2? Or would this be a problem for the teachers?

My dd has completed ks2 Italian and French and her tutor is now encouraging conversation.
In september though her new school will teach German which she hasn't done, I was a bit worried until I read they will probably all start from the beginning anyway.

I suspect 'classroom language' means instructions such as, stand up, sit down, listen and repeat. It may also mean standard questions they might ask in a classroom situation.

(not a MFL teacher, so please feel free to contradict me here!)

I think your approach sounds very realistic.

Whatever language they learn, they will be starting from scratch again in high school...

I would add trying to teach that different languages have different letters and sounds, and that it is not "silly" to roll the r, for example.

I am relieved to hear that your school are employing a qualified languages teacher. MFL at my dcs primary is taught by TAs, with a fabulous language in a box course that doesn't require the teacher to have any prior knowledge. It shows, they are learning some sort of "pretend French" and I'd much rather my dcs weren't taught any MFL at all.

Thanks for all your replies. ClickingCastanets the Scottish documents looks useful, thank you.
I will add in some more classroom language ('She took my pencil Miss' would be a key phrase for most of my classes.....). I am trying to encourage accurate pronunciation as much as possible and introduce words orally before they see them written down, and pointing out differences between French and English phonics, reminding them about not pronouncing the final consonant etc. I think they're still young enough to pick the accent a bit more easily and to enjoy the difference in sounds rather than being embarrassed.
We have achieved a little bit of conversation ('est-ce que tu aimes le chocolat? Oui j'aime le chocolat' is about as far as it goes) and Year 6 have done some short role plays which they really enjoyed.
I do think it's a really tough call for most primaries to be honest, there's no extra funding to buy in specialist teaching and even the most enthusiastic teacher is going to struggle if they don't actually speak the language to a reasonable level themselves. I'm pretty much fluent but still have to resort to the dictionary now and then, I never needed to know how to say 'shin pads' or 'brussels sprouts' before....

My DD, at a bilingual French primary, has done Spanish as a MFL in Y5 and Y6. Her teacher follows a programme (with books, CDs, classroom materials, tests etc) that is highly structured around the A1 goals of the CEFR in a primary context. The programme is published by a Spanish publisher but I imagine that a French publishing house may have produced something similar. There are certainly several for teaching English as a MFL.