INTENT

It is our intention to create a culture of language learning that helps children become confident communicators with a ‘can do’ attitude and an inquisitiveness of the world and its people. The MFL curriculum is carefully planned around clear, sequential progression in phonics, vocabulary and grammar to foster children’s listening, speaking, read and writing skills. It also offers regular opportunities to build on prior language and to revisit and apply language learned previously. Children are also exposed to Spanish and Hispanic culture through its focus on traditions and festivals of Spain and Mexico, enriching theme days and the use of books and songs.

IMPLEMENTATION

Our Spanish curriculum is adapted from Early Start Languages. Spanish lessons are delivered weekly by Mrs Holden, our Spanish teacher. The lesson activities are challenging, varied and interactive and incorporate explicit teaching of the three key knowledge strands – phonics, vocabulary and grammar to develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. The choice of topics ensures exposure to all the key phonic sounds, prioritises the use of high frequency words and ensures appropriate grammatical progress. Lessons are intended to be active and highly focused, with children working as a whole class, in small groups, in mixed-ability pairs or independently to complete tasks at their individual level. Lessons and activities are structured and resourced in a variety of ways to accommodate children in the same class who are all at different stages of their language-learning journeys. Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision and recall of language and grammatical concepts are built into lessons. Lessons help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills. Pupils’ acquisition of language is based on teacher assessment of their spoken and written Spanish in lessons.

Activities consist of games, stories, songs, phonics, grammar and sentence-building activities, resources dictionary work and role play. Culture and customs of Spanish speaking countries are integrated into planning and enhanced with theme days. Formative assessment in each lesson informs the planning and teaching of subsequent lesson plans.

IMPACT

Our Spanish curriculum will ensure all pupils develop key language learning skills set out by the national curriculum, as well as deepening their understanding and appreciation of the world around us, and promoting a greater tolerance, empathy and acceptance of others Pupils will:

• develop a love of language learning
• understand about some different customs and cultures from around the world

• have a bank of Spanish knowledge and vocabulary
• be able to speak confidently and maintain a conversation in Spanish in front of an audience or their peers
• recognise and understand some of the grammar rules of Spanish and can apply these in their written and spoken work
• Will be able to read passages confidently in Spanish and understand what they have read