Spanish

Curriculum Intent

Learning Modern Foreign Languages is an important part of our students’ education as communicating in another language brings a range of personal, cultural, social and career benefits and opportunities and we will continue to grow our cohort at KS4 as our students appreciate the importance of learning another language. All students in KS3 are now learning Spanish and through this subject they will develop a range of transferable and cross-curricular skills which include but are not limited to; cultural awareness, literacy, phonics, numeracy, memorisation techniques, description, narration and inferring meaning. Our team are ambitious for our learners and strive to remove barriers to learning another language and to see all of our students develop into confident, enthusiastic, curious, engaged and aspirational linguists.

All pupils in KS3 school study Spanish and through their lessons, they will gain knowledge of core vocabulary and structures, key grammar and the phonics of the new language and will deepen the understanding of how these are used by Spanish speakers. We aim to develop students who are confident, resilient and curious about their language learning and who will communicate using this language.

Implementation

In Key Stage 3 students study Spanish as a Modern Foreign Language. In each topic in KS3 Spanish students gain additional vocabulary, along with grammatical structures to enable them to understand and communication in the four skill areas of speaking, reading, listening and writing. As we now offer a 3-year KS3 in Year 9 students cover a range of topics that will help them should they chose to study Spanish at GCSE course and to give them confidence in applying key grammar rules such as using past, present and future tenses and expressing opinions and reasons using adjectives. Topics in Year 9 include Free Time, Healthy Living, Town and Customs, Social and Global Issues.

All students in KS3 and those students who take GCSE Languages as an option in KS4 are taught all four skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing and each of these skill areas are practised, reinforced and assessed on a regular basis. We aim to encourage our students to be more independent in their language learning.

In short, the MFL curriculum is planned to develop our students’ communication in languages through:

Vocabulary and sequencing (including verbs)
Knowledge of phonics and the alphabet
Use and understanding of grammar patterns and rules

Impact

A variety of formative assessment data from ongoing observations of activities in class such as dictation, reading aloud texts, role-plays, listening and reading comprehension and written and also from learning checks to identify retrieval and retention of core knowledge from Knowledge Organisers s in class and at home. Use of this data and information will allow MFL teachers to monitor the students’ understanding, knowledge and skills and inform planning that is suitable for supporting and challenging the students at every stage of their progress. Summative assessment also takes place twice a year with a listening, reading and translation paper (LRT) and a rotation of speaking and writing, in order to track students’ performance against their minimum expected target grade, with interventions being implemented as required following marking and moderation. For the two of the assessments, these are set at trust level to inform how our students are progressing across the Trust.

Why is this important for our students?

Our curriculum intent is important for our students specifically as:

It widens horizons and understanding about the Spanish-speaking and French speaking(KS4) world. These are places that many of our students have not had the opportunity to visit or experience, and this has been more restricted since the Pandemic.
It allows students to build their linguistic skills in the skills areas of speaking, reading, listening and writing
Languages support learning in other subjects including literacy, communication, grammar and applying patterns and rules is a subject that works well with others to provide a solid foundation of learning across all subjects. It can help to improve oral and written communication and also listening skills.