Intent

 

Learning a foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multicultural society and provides an opening for learning further languages, equipping children to study and work in other countries. A high-quality language education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable children to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, primarily in speech, but later in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes and learn new ways of thinking. Language teaching should provide the foundations.

Through the study of Spanish, children learn skills for acquiring new languages and learn about our multicultural world. Whilst doing so, we intend to follow the national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all children:

1. Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources.

2. Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation.

3. Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt.

4. Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

 

Implementation

Children have weekly lessons in Spanish throughout Key Stage 2, using the resources and units of work adapted from Rachel Hawkes Scheme of Work. In Lower KS2, children acquire basic skills and understanding of Spanish with a strong emphasis placed on developing their grammatical understanding. These will be embedded and further developed in Upper KS2, alongside Reading and Writing, gradually progressing onto more complex language concepts and greater learner autonomy.

Children will have one 30-minute lesson per week as well as four 5 minute mini follow-up and one 10 minute mini follow up.
The grammar features and phonics in lower KS2 (Y3/4) are all introduced in Year A and revisited in new contexts in Year B to deepen knowledge. The same applies to upper KS2 (Y5/6). Vocabulary varies in Year A and Year B. 

It is intended that when children leave Highfield Community Primary School, they will have a natural curiosity and confidence to explore other countries, cultures and languages, accepting that, in a multilingual society it is a valuable skill to be able to communicate effectively with others in another language.  They will be engaged and prepared to continue language learning at Secondary School.

Impact

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Observing children speaking and listening in another language.

• Images and videos of children completing speaking and listening activities.

• Interviewing the children about their learning (pupil voice).

• Moderation staff meetings where children’s work is scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’ work.

• Marking of written work.

• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum to parents.

• Learning walks.

• Subject tracking.

The MFL subject leader will continually monitor the impact MFL teaching is having on the children’s learning, through pupil voice, work and planning scrutinies, to ensure the progress of knowledge and skills is being taught.  They will also ensure the knowledge taught is retained by the children and continually revisited and that the learners are able to apply the skills they have been taught to a variety of different settings, showing independence with their learning. Impact will also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment and summative assessments aimed at targeting next steps in learning.