Spanish at Westmorland Primary School

Intent:

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:
•    understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic
sources
•    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
•    can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of
grammatical structures that they have learnt
•    discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

A high-quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At Westmorland, ensure the four key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing are met by ensuring that teaching enables pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. We recognise that competence in another language enables children to interpret, create and exchange meaning within and across cultures.
At Westmorland, we have chosen Spanish as our MFL offer due to many of our families choosing to holiday in Spain, thus making Spanish a language that our children can use outside of the classroom.  Knowledge and skills in Spanish are progressive from one year to the next and are mapped across KS2. Having previously taught French, all year groups this year have been taught our Year 3 as their starting point.

Implementation:
Knowledge organisers have been created for each unit in line with our scheme of work to show what the expected outcomes are and what specific vocabulary children should know. We have ensured that coverage progresses from year group to year group so that teachers are aware of what children should already know and what they will learn subsequently.
Each class in KS2 is timetabled 45 minutes of Spanish each week where:
•    Children are taught to listen attentively to spoken language and respond, joining in with songs, rhymes and games.
•    Children develop an appreciation of a variety of stories, songs, poems and rhymes in Spanish that are delivered through the curriculum content.
•    Games are played in order to develop vocabulary through repetition, reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.
•    Role-play is utilized to relate to the situations the children may find themselves in the future.
•    Action songs and rhymes – to develop phonetic skills, memory skills and to further vocabulary.
•    We build children’s confidence through praise for any contribution they make in the foreign language, however tentative.

Impact:
Through the high quality first teaching of Spanish taking place we will see the impact of the subject in the following ways:
•    Children will be able to communicate with each other in Spanish.
•    Children will become aware that a language has a structure, and that the structure differs from one language to another.
•    Children will develop their language through development of the four key skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
•    Children will enrich their language learning by developing an understanding of the Spanish culture.
•    Children will learn how language skills can be applied to a range of languages.
•    Children will transfer to KS3 effectively and successfully and will be well prepared to continue and develop their language skills.