Modern Foreign Languages (Spanish)

A high-quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At Colham Manor, we are committed to inspiring our pupils to become confident and enthusiastic language learners with a broad understanding of the Spanish language and culture.

Our intention is for pupils to develop the skills to listen, speak, read and write in Spanish, while building the confidence to express themselves and explore new ways of thinking through language learning.

Our teaching is designed to build pupils’ understanding of how learning another language connects people, cultures and communities worldwide. It aims is to encourage pupils to become open-minded, active citizens who can appreciate diversity and engage meaningfully with the wider world.

The 2014 National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) aims to ensure that all children:

• Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources

• Are able to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and that they are continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation

• Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt

• Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

Our Approach

We teach Spanish weekly using the 'Kapow' Scheme of Work. Each lesson is built around specific goals and subject themes so that pupils can develop their language skills as a series of building blocks. 

The three ‘pillars of progression’ of language learning (phonics, grammar and vocabulary) are all built into our approach where previous language is recycled, revisited and consolidated and any new language introduced gradually becomes more complex and sophisticated. These three pillars of learning contribute to substantial progress in Spanish by the end of our pupils' time at primary school.

The four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) are catered for. Early Learning units focus on listening and speaking but still provide age-appropriate materials for reading and writing. As children progress, there is an equal focus on all four of the skills in progressively more challenging activities.

What Spanish Looks Like

We are committed to ensuring our Spanish teaching provides the foundation for learning further languages, as well as the means to access international opportunities for study and work later in life.  Children are introduced to Spanish from Year 3. The teaching of Spanish provides an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and lays the foundations for further foreign language teaching at Key Stage 3. Throughout Key Stage 2, children receive at least 30 minutes of Spanish teaching and learning every week.

Spanish is delivered progressively, with key skills, grammar and vocabulary revisited with increasing complexity, allowing our pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work including role-play, language games and language detective work. 

Each Spanish lesson begins with a short activity revisiting prior learning. This helps reinforce key knowledge, activate long-term memory and create connections between past and new learning. A short, engaging activity is then used, designed to hook pupils into the new learning in the lesson. After this, the core part of the lesson engages pupils in activities that develop their understanding of the learning objective using a range of teacher modelling, guided practice and independent or collaborative tasks tailored to support all pupils. Children are then supported to review and consolidate their learning, with additional opportunities to assess understanding and encourage deeper thinking. We know that children learn in a variety of ways. As such, our Spanish lessons include a range of strategies to support and challenge every pupil, such as scaffolding, multi-sensory approaches, clear instructions and structured tasks and opportunities for collaborative and independent learning. By embedding adaptive teaching approaches throughout our teaching, we ensure that all pupils, regardless of their starting points, can access and succeed in their learning.

Curriculum Celebrations

We have facilitated international residential visits to Barcelona. On these visits, children made some lifelong memories. Our pupils who attended also benefitted from maximum exposure to the language during their trip, providing constant opportunities for learners to use their Spanish in a real-world setting so that they see the benefits of learning a second language.

How Can I Support My Child's Learning?

You might like to support their learning at home by trying some of the following:

1. Learn alongside them: Find out the language they are learning and get them to teach you some key words and phrases. You may also wish to invest in a child friendly Spanish dictionary to look up further words.

2. Make it multimedia: 

• Duolingo is a free, fun and effective app to learn languages on. 
• Bitesize Spanish have lots of songs, games and activities to support the learning of Spanish.
• Bitesize languages have lots of activities linked to other languages your child may be interested in.