Spanish

Intent

At St Andrew’s CE Primary School, we believe that learning a modern foreign language is a necessary part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and that it provides an opening to other cultures. We aim to provide a high-quality languages education which will inspire and foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the wider world. The languages education our pupils receive should enable them to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages (in secondary school and beyond); we aim to develop our pupils’ natural curiosity and develop their confidence to explore other countries, cultures and languages, accepting that, in a multi-lingual society, it is a valuable skill to be able to communicate effectively with others in another language. We aim to inspire our pupils to become life- long language learners!

Implementation

Following a recent review of our curriculum and guided by our pupil voice, we have recently introduced our children to Language Angels and have begun teaching Spanish. We believe the children are more likely to retain Spanish and it aligns to our feeder secondary curriculum.

Children are introduced to Spanish from Years 3 to 6 and receive a weekly thirty-minute lesson, throughout their time in school. This enables the children to develop early language acquisition skills that facilitate their understanding of the patterns of language and how these differ from, or are similar to, English.

Language Angels is a ‘step-by-step’ approach. The three ‘pillars’ of language learning (phonics, grammar and vocabulary) are all built into the scheme and, as pupils progress through the units and teaching types, previous language is recycled, revisited and consolidated.