Spanish

At Rainford CE Primary School, we believe that the learning of a language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for our pupils.  It helps them to develop valuable communication skills, through speaking, listening, reading and writing, whilst their knowledge of how language works is developed and extended. Our MFL curriculum provides pupils with the confidence and independence to explore and manipulate the structure of language, and by learning only Spanish, our lessons enable pupils to make substantial progress in one language. All of the linguistic skills gained will assist and lay foundations for further language learning, whilst the cultural understanding will ensure that children develop a broad perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others and so enabling them to understand their roles as global citizens.

 As a Christian school, we embed our values of love, peace, justice, forgiveness, joy, perseverance and friendship within all our teaching and learning.  In particular, MFL allows children to develop their understanding and respect of all people, cultures and beliefs.  Language lies at the heart of ideas about individual identity and community, and learning another language can do a great deal to shape children's ideas about themselves and God's world.

In KS2, all of our children have equal opportunities to:

• Communicate in other languages by speaking and listening, reading and writing;
• Develop an enthusiasm and foster an interest in learning languages;
• Develop awareness of the benefits of understanding and speaking different languages;
• Respect and develop an awareness of cultural differences and similarities in other countries;
• Become involved in the international dimension of school;
• Develop transferable speaking and listening skills;
• Lay foundations for future study for KS3

At Rainford CE Primary School, we use the School Improvement Liverpool scheme of work as the basis for our curriculum. This four year scheme is based on the national curriculum programmes of study. Each objective has been broken down in to 4 levels to form a framework of age- related expectations. The scheme, which includes weekly-planning, is designed to build knowledge and skills, encouraging pupils to become increasingly independent and creative in their language study. Each half term follows a theme, enabling language and structures to be revisited , embedded and extended across KS2 with the aim of producing language- learners who are well-equipped for key stage 3.

Our themes are:

• Autumn 1: Self, family and friends
• Autumn 2: School life
• Spring 1: The world around us
• Spring 2: Animals and home environment
• Summer 1: Leisure
• Summer 2: Summer

Across each of these half-terms, we have also mapped out progression in number up to 100. To allow for cross-curricular mathematical fluency practise, our pupils are taught not only to recognise numbers but are given explicit opportunities to count in and out of sequence; to add and subtract; to recognise odds and evens; to double and halve; to count in multiples; to use euros and calculate pricing.

Within our curriculum, across the four skill areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing, we also recognise the importance of grammar, phonics and vocabulary as interrelated disciplinaries. Through repeated encounters of these within different contexts, pupils will naturally make connections, recognise patterns, refine language skills and build their own schemata.

We have particularly introduced explicit phonics within our MFL curriculum. We recognise that children’s first language phonics system adds confusion therefore we need to explicitly teach the foreign language code. We have linked it to the four skill areas as follows:

Listening: recognising the spoken phoneme

Speaking: producing the phoneme accurately

Reading: linking phoneme to grapheme and recognising familiar and unfamiliar written words

Writing: correctly spelling familiar and unfamiliar words

Furthermore, reflecting reading as the heart of our GROW curriculum, our MFL curriculum uses quality texts throughout KS2. These texts will often link to the KS1 reading spines to allow for children to revisit much-loved texts in a different language.

In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, pupils will be introduced to the Spanish language through nursery rhymes, songs, counting and simple classroom instructions which familiarises the children to the language before they enter Key Stage Two; they are then able to develop:

• the ability to identify sound
• the ability to mimic
• the willingness to have a go and take risks
• their enthusiasm and capacity for enjoyment
• the ability to develop confidence and positive attitudes to language

Cognitive Load Theory is at the heart of all of our curriculum design and pedagogy at Rainford CE and our Spanish curriculum is no exception. The curriculum content is sequenced to build learning over time- the content is planned and sequenced so that knowledge and skills build on prior learning and towards clearly defined end points; curriculum content supports subsequent learning: within lessons, lesson sequences, topics, years and phases curriculum; planning identifies small enough component steps; and known gaps in knowledge and skills are addressed in the sequencing of lesson content.

Long Term Planning