Intent: This is what we want for your child.

At Green Park Community Primary School Primary School, our intention is for our children to develop a wider cultural awareness, become global citizens and nurture a curiosity about the world around them from a very early age; values which are central to our school ethos.  From the start of their educational journey, we aim to ensure that our children acquire and develop a genuine interest in foreign languages and begin a sustained study of a European language – Spanish.  We aim for our children to be inspired, motivated and enthusiastic about learning a new language and to acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge.  We want our children to have the skills to converse in Spanish about their everyday experiences, activities and feelings, both orally and in writing. 

We believe learning an additional language offers our children the opportunity to explore relationships between language and identity, develops their self-awareness and promotes a deeper understanding of other cultures.  Our ultimate aim is that the children who leave our school begin to make links between different languages, have a natural curiosity about the world around them and the people who live in it and who feel confident and motivated to study languages beyond Key Stage 2

Implementation: This is what it will look like in the classroom.

Our approach to language is extended and challenged year on year throughout the primary phase.  The curriculum has been carefully designed to ensure children progressively acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary, language skills and grammatical knowledge in their learning.  Our children continuously build on their previous knowledge as they progress in their foreign language learning journey through school and the language taught will be familiar and will encourage them to explore common greetings, familiar places and events. 

Our children follow a carefully structured Spanish curriculum which is designed to ensure children know more, remember more and can do more as they progress through our school.  Our curriculum is taught using:

• Listening,
• Speaking,
• Reading,
• Writing (grammar is covered in an age-appropriate way across the primary phase).

Curriculum delivery is supported by the Language Angels MFL Scheme of Learning and utilises a range of digital and interactive teaching resources based within three progressive language units. 

• Intermediate Language units challenge children by increasing the complexity and grammatical concepts presented to them. Intermediate units are taught in Years 4 and 5 building upon knowledge acquired during the early language units in KS1. 
• Progressive Language and Creative Curriculum units are the most challenging and are taught only to Year 6 children.

This scheme provides a basis for building blocks of language understanding into more complex, fluent and authentic language that progress in difficulty.  This scheme has been selected because it has been devised by subject experts, is based on the latest pedagogical research and has been adapted to meet the needs of our children. 

Early Learning units begin with basic noun and article level and teach children how to formulate short phrases.  By the time children reach progressive units, they are exposed to more complex language and are encouraged to formulate their own, more personalised, responses based on a wider bank of vocabulary, linguistic structures and grammatical knowledge.  Children will be encouraged to create longer pieces of spoken and written language and to use a variety of conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, opinions and justifications in their speech.   Previous language learning will be continually revised, recalled and consolidated to ensure knowledge is embedded and evolves over time.

Spanish is taught regularly and detailed schemes of learning support teaching, ensure continuity and carefully plan for progression and depth.  Children have opportunities to use high quality resources and by the end of their time apply their learning to real-life contexts (such as writing to pen pals in Year 6).  This planning also underpins an appropriate teaching pedagogy for effective, quality first teaching in MFL.

We are proud to offer a curriculum informed by the latest research and which undergoes regular reviews and updates to ensure its relevance and effectiveness. 

Impact: This is what it will mean for our children.

The impact of our Spanish curriculum is that our children will have a genuine interest in foreign languages.  We believe that the Spanish curriculum encourages understanding, tolerance and positive curiosity about other cultures, finding them both inspiring and stimulating.

Our Spanish curriculum and our teaching and learning pedagogy leads to children who:

• Are inspired, motivated and enthusiastic about language learning.
• Acquire, use and apply a growing bank of vocabulary.
• Develop language skills and grammatical knowledge by following age-appropriate topics and themes.
• Understand more complex, fluent and authentic language in units of progressing difficulty.
• Create longer pieces of spoken and written language and begin to use a variety of conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, opinions and justifications
• Have opportunities to use high quality resources and apply their learning to real-life contexts. 
• Have a wider cultural awareness and links between languages and identity.

Children leave Green Park Community Primary School equipped with a range of linguistic skills needed to succeed in the next phase of education.  We are confident that children will carry an enjoyment and appreciation of the Spanish language throughout their lives and use this as a basis when learning other languages. They will have an understanding of Spanish culture, customs, celebrations, food, landmarks etc.  We hope that their learning about Spain and the Spanish culture will create a desire to travel beyond their local community and experience other countries and cultures around the world.

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MFL Curriculum

At Green Park Spanish is given a high profile with a clearly articulated whole school approach. There is a working wall in every class room for Spanish and displays around the school. The school building has labels in the foreign language. Cross-curricular opportunities are explored where possible.

In EYFS children begin to learn about the meaning of different languages through their Understanding of the World lessons.

In KS1 children are further exposed to more Spanish through greetings and celebrations, Children are also expected to answer the register in Spanish and celebrate each other's birthday with a chorus of ¡Feliz cumpleaños! .

In KS2 children follow a spiral curriculum helping embed previous learning, the topics are listed below.