Spanish

At Betty Layward Primary School, we know that the study of a modern foreign language enhances children's literacy, self-confidence and broader cultural understanding. Our ambition to embed language learning within our curriculum is the statutory commitment in the National Curriculum to give every child between the ages of 7 and 11 the opportunity to learn a new language. With over 220 million speakers internationally, Spanish is a widely learnt language after English.

At Betty Layward, we believe that learning a new language is a key step to becoming part of the global community that we live in. Learning a foreign language as a child and you have a lifetime to benefit from cross-cultural friendships, broader career opportunities, exciting travel adventures and deeper insights into how others see the world.

The curriculum at Betty Layward aims to initiate progress throughout a child’s school career by developing a secure understanding of grammar, vocabulary and culture at the relevant stage.   Beginning in KS1, we aim to build children’s curiosity about other cultures as well as their passion for language learning. Through fun and engaging activities in lessons, we help children build on their speaking and listening abilities and help them to understand the importance of these valuable skills. As pupils move through KS2, they are given opportunities to engage in work with our partner schools as well as demonstrate their understanding of Spanish grammar.  At Betty Layward all pupils in key stage 1 and 2 learn Spanish as their modern foreign language for one lesson per week.

In Spanish, children will learn to:

• read fluently
• write imaginatively
• speak confidently
• and understand the culture of the countries in which the language is spoken.

We aim to ensure that children:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and 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
• and discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the Spanish language

Subject Content

At Betty Layward Primary School, we follow the National Curriculum for Spanish. The aims of which are outlined below:

Key Stage 2: Foreign Language

The teaching of a foreign language should provide an appropriate balance of spoken and written language and should lay the foundations for further foreign language teaching at Key Stage 3. It should enable pupils to understand and communicate ideas, facts and feelings in speech and writing, focused on familiar and routine matters, using their knowledge of phonology, grammatical structures and vocabulary. The focus of study in modern languages will be on practical communication.

Pupils should be taught to:

• listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding
• explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words
• engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help
• speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures
• develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases
• present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences
• read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing
•  appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language
•  broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary
•  write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly
• describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing
• understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English.

National Curriculum Languages Programmes of Study-please click here