Intent Our Spanish Curriculum at St Benedict’s allows children to develop a genuine interest and curiosity about the wider world, acquiring knowledge about the language, culture and traditions of Spanish speaking countries.
The four key language learning skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing will be taught and all necessary grammar will be covered in an age-appropriate way across the primary phase. This will enable pupils to use and apply their learning in a variety of contexts, laying down solid foundations for future language learning and also helping the children improve overall attainment in other subject areas.
Implementation
Units, where possible and appropriate, are linked to class topics and cross curricular themes. Children will build on previous knowledge gradually as their foreign language lessons continue to recycle, revise and consolidate previously learnt language whilst building on all four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Knowledge and awareness of required and appropriate grammar concepts will be taught throughout all units at all levels of challenge. Teachers ensure all children are progressing their foreign language learning skills and are taught the appropriate grammar at the right time in their foreign language learning journey. Grammar rules and patterns will be taught by level of challenge:
We start with nouns and articles and 1st person singular of high frequency verbs in Early Learning units.
We move on to the use of the possessive, the concept of adjectives, use of the negative form, conjunctions/connectives and introduce the concept of whole regular verb conjugation in Intermediate units.
We end with opinions and introduce the concept of whole high frequency irregular verb conjugation in Progressive units.
Impact
Our aim is to set the foundations for life-long language learners. We want to ensure children recognise the relevance of learning a second language for their future and to encourage pupils to continue to pursue an enjoyment of foreign language learning as they move into a secondary school setting.