Intent

At St Mary’s Fields Primary School, the Spanish curriculum aims to develop the confidence and competence of each child by providing a solid foundation not only in the Spanish language, but also in language learning skills and strategies. Our goal is for the children to be passionate and curious about language learning, as well as confident about their own foreign language abilities when they finish primary school. They will progress in the four key language learning skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – by progressively increasing their knowledge of the Spanish vocabulary, grammar and phonics throughout Key Stage 2.

We will also help children to strengthen their sense of identity as well as to promote their cultural awareness and understanding through learning about cultures in Spanish-speaking countries and comparing them with their own cultural backgrounds. Our curriculum intends to provide an inclusive and engaging learning experience that fosters a love for the Spanish language and Spanish-speaking countries’ cultures, promotes cultural understanding, and encourages students to become lifelong learners.

The ultimate aim is that children will feel willing and able to continue studying languages beyond Key Stage 2, with confidence.

Implementation

We follow the ‘Language Angels’ scheme, which is designed to progressively develop children’s skills in Spanish.

Children will progressively acquire, use, and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge organised around age-appropriate topics and themes. They will gradually build on previous knowledge as their foreign language lessons continue to revisit, revise and consolidate acquired language whilst building on all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Knowledge and awareness of required and appropriate grammar concepts, rules and patterns will be taught throughout all units, according to the required levels of challenge.

In addition to the lessons provided in the ‘Language Angels’ scheme, there will be one lesson each half-term focused on a cultural aspect of one or several Spanish-speaking countries, such as traditions, celebrations and festivals, traditional foods and dances, artists, etc. We will also add practical skills and language learning strategies such as the use of paper and online dictionaries or other tools to search for unknown words, idioms and verb conjugations.
 

Impact

By the end of KS2 children will have acquired the foreign language knowledge and the language learning strategies and transferrable skills that will help them to continue learning Spanish and/or other modern foreign languages in secondary school. They will also have increased their cultural awareness and improved their communication skills, both needed in our increasingly global world.