At Our Lady & St Patrick's, children in Key Stage Two learn to speak Spanish, through weekly lessons with our Spanish Teacher!
Planning & Progression in Spanish
Scheme of Work - Year 4 to Year 6
Progression of Skills in Languages
End of Year Expectations (National Curriculum)
National Curriculum Programme of Study - Languages
Our Spanish Lessons
We employ a professional Spanish teacher, who works with children in Years 4 to 6 to deliver weekly Spanish lessons. These lessons include a variety of techniques to encourage the children to have an active engagement with the new language, including games, role-play, action songs and LOTS of speaking and listening!
Lessons are carefully planned and differentiated to allow for progression in children's understanding from Year 4 to Year 6. The lessons are fun and engaging, with a key focus on speaking and listening, and covering a range of spoken and written work in Spanish.
During lessons, and in our planning, we prioritise listening, responding and speaking skills, supported by the acquisition of simple reading and writing skills.
Ultimately, we want our to children develop positive attitudes to other languages and, thereby, to other cultures and countries, as they grow and discover more about the wider world. An understanding of other languages is a key skill - for life!
Achievements & Events
We have been awarded the 'International School Award' by the British Council
Celebrating the Day of The Kings
On the evening of January 5th every year, Spanish towns and cities are given over to the colourful parades of the Dia de los Reyes, or the Kings' Day – a celebration of the arrival of the three wise men in Bethlehem after Jesus' birth.
For many families, Three Kings Day is as big a celebration as Christmas Day. It's customary to gather with friends and family to celebrate, often by opening gifts, playing music, and sharing a large meal together.
Working with a Spanish School
We have established a link with a primary school in Spain, which has given our children a real purpose for their new language skills, and is further enhancing their intercultural awareness and understanding.
For the last two years, our Spansih Teacher worked with our Year 6 children to make Christmas cards, celebrating Britain and our local area of The Lake District, to send to children in Spain.
This year, every class made Christmas cards with a British theme, and some children also made traditional, handmade gifts at home, to send to our friends in Spain!
The Spanish children were delighted to receive our Christmas Cards, gifts and messages and have replied with lovely cards and messages of their own!
The whole school made Christmas cards and gifts to send to our friends in Spain!
Vision Statement - Modern Foreign Languages
At Our Lady & St Patrick's, we believe that the learning of a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for pupils.
Pupils develop communication and literacy skills that lay the foundation for future language learning. They develop linguistic competence, extend their knowledge of how language works and explore differences and similarities between the foreign language (Spanish, in our case) and English.
Learning another language raises awareness of our multi-lingual and multi-cultural world and introduces an international dimension to pupils’ learning, giving them an insight into their own culture and that of others.
The learning of a foreign language provides a medium for cross-curricular links and for reinforcement of knowledge, skills and understanding developed in other subjects.
We will teach children to:
Attainment & Assessment
We use the ‘Framework for Languages’ as a tool for assessment, assessing the different strands of language learning on a termly basis.
We use the following documents (published above) to inform our assessment of children's learning in Spanish: