Spanish
Our Spanish curriculum seeks to give pupils a relevant, broad and ambitious foreign languages curriculum that will inspire and excite them through a wide variety of topics and themes. All pupils will be expected to achieve their full potential by encouraging high expectations and excellent standards in their foreign language learning – the ultimate aim being that pupils will feel willing and able to continue studying languages beyond key stage 2.
Intent
The intention of the Modern Foreign language’s curriculum at Merritt’s Brook, is to be fully inclusive and enable all of our pupils to develop knowledge and skills of an additional language and culture. As Spanish is the second most popular spoken language after English and third most popular across the world; Merritts Brook has chosen to embrace Spanish within our Modern Foreign Languages curriculum. The modern, foreign languages curriculum, is designed to inspire and foster a love for languages and other cultures within our pupils; also building enthusiasm and respect for alternative cultures, enabling the school to become part of a global community. Developing knowledge and skills, through speaking, listening, reading and writing in Spanish, lays a solid foundation for the journey into becoming bi-lingual and supports the pupils understanding of the wider world. Instilling an aspiration in our pupils, one day to visit or work in another country. Through introducing the children to the Spanish language and culture, we intend for them to build the knowledge and skills, so that they can express their thoughts and feelings in another language. The school follows regular sequenced lessons in line with national curriculum expectations which supports a growing passion for the subject alongside the opportunity to develop strong communication skills, and the ability to be independent learners.
Implementation
As a school, we have created sequential learning plans, which are used alongside ‘Language Angels,’ therefore embedding the content to deliver challenging and progressive lessons. Spanish is taught bi-weekly for 45 minutes and each lesson demonstrates opportunities to practise and develop the four key skills of learning; speaking, listening, reading and writing. Spanish is not only reserved for lessons, as children are exposed to Spanish daily through the use of greetings and basic conversation within the school environment. Knowledge of the Spanish language and culture, begins in EYFS within Nursery, through a Spanish mascot, “Senorita Selina”, which develops an awareness of different languages and cultures, this progresses as the pupils move in to Reception, through early speech, songs, and stories; developing into full lessons by KS1 and advancing to demonstrate a firm knowledge of phonics and grammar within KS2. The chosen modules for Spanish are varied throughout the school journey, with particular topics being revisited from KS1 within KS2 giving opportunity for developing more complex language skills, recall, retrieval and building on long term memory. Spanish is celebrated across the school, not only within lessons but with our Spanish Day Celebration, which further explores the culture of Spanish speaking countries and creates a wider enthusiasm for the subject for both pupils and teachers.
Impact
The school’s enthusiasm for Spanish, demonstrated by staff during engaging and exciting lessons and developed by pupils through varied opportunities to engage in language practice, creates a whole school love of learning languages. The curriculum enables pupils to be exposed to a language and culture, beyond their own and creates both a respect and encouragement to think big and be aspirational, with pupils expressing a desire for exploring and travelling to use their developing Spanish knowledge and skills. The use of speaking, listening, reading, and writing within every lesson, allows pupils to understand and build different methods of communication skills, which will transfer across all subjects within the school’s curriculum. The knowledge retained is assessed through both formative assessment using opportunities to speak and write within lessons, as well as summative assessment through knowledge trees, end of topic quizzes, and target tracker data input.
