MFL

Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish) Curriculum Intent

At Rosa Street Primary School, we want to develop a life-long love of languages in order to effectively equip our pupils for life as a global citizen. We believe that being a proficient linguist is something that children must be taught in order to thrive in a range of diverse international communities.  We believe that pupils not only have the right to be taught a rich languages curriculum that has phonetic knowledge at its heart, but also one that provides deep learning experiences beyond the classroom. In order to do this, our language teaching is closely interlinked with our international schools work with our Spanish partner school in Gran Canaria. The vocabulary and language skills that children are taught have been carefully thought out to ensure that language learning builds on prior knowledge and targets specific vocabulary appropriate for the children’s level of language experience.

 Our Spanish curriculum is designed to engage, motivate and inspire children so that they develop a love of languages, providing a foundation for further language study. Spanish has been chosen as it is so widely spoken across the world, relevant to the children and its phonetic structure means that children are able to feel successful. Spanish has many links to other curriculum subjects such as Geography, English and PSHE. We use a systematic scheme of learning which is built around the core phonetic basis of the language and continually builds on prior learning. This is broken up into four key elements of language; listening, speaking, reading and writing.  Specific language and grammar conventions that we want children to know and remember are clearly identified from our key ‘golden threads’ across Key Stage 2. Knowledge organisers have been developed for each sequence of learning and are used by children to help them revisit prior learning and identify key learning from that particular sequence.

We have woven our various awards through our curriculum and have made clear links through our cohesion document to Rights Respecting Schools. We aim to empower our children by teaching them to learn how to learn in order for them to make informed choices later in life. Within lessons, staff make reference to the protected characteristics including race, nationality religion and gender.

At Rosa Street we have a significant number of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, meaning raising aspirations is a focal point of the curriculum. We actively encourage all pupils to take up the opportunity of enrichment activities in school (such as residential trips) where they can apply their language learning and experience different cultures and we make every attempt to remove any barriers for such children.

Children’s’ understanding will be evidences in a number of different ways. Work in books as well as photographs, floor books and video evidence will all be used to showcase learning opportunities and evidence progression across a year and also across the key stage. The endpoints for each sequence of learning are clear and children are expected to demonstrate their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills for each unit. Practical and oral approaches are prioritised so that children are immersed in the language and learn words and phrases to support everyday interactions and conversations. It is our intention that as children progress, they can communicate with increasing fluency and confidence both in discussions and when asking and answering questions.  

As children reach the end of their time at Rosa Street, they will have amassed a deep understanding of Spanish and the skills required to learn a foreign language. They will have developed accurate basic language skills and the relevant ‘sticky knowledge’ to take with them into their next stage of learning.