Spanish
Ethos:
At Christ Church and Holy Trinity, we want children to not only learn a language, but to develop a love for learning languages in general.
Intention:
Studying a modern foreign language has been proven to have enormous benefits, such as helping enhance problem solving skills, improving verbal and spatial abilities and improving memory function (long and short term).
At Christ Church and Holy Trinity, children have one Spanish lesson every week, starting in Reception. There has been a clear improvement since the learning has been uninterrupted from Year Reception, compared to those children who started later or stopped for one year. The year groups that started earlier are learning faster, as they are already more familiar with the language.
The entire school celebrates the culture of Spanish speaking countries by having special seasonal lessons, and by having a yearly Spanish celebration for Carnival, where everyone gets involved in welcoming a different culture.
Implementation:
In Year Reception, the aim is to familiarize children with the language and culture. During this time, their learning is mostly based on singing, dancing and playing games, as it is a key time where they will create a positive association to the language. The skills we focus on are speaking and understanding the spoken language.
In KS1, children are already quite familiar with the language, and it is a time to start putting what they know to paper, starting to learn how spelling words in Spanish. Whilst we are mostly working on their vocabulary, there is still very interactive and fun- staying in the line of our ethos. The skill of writing is added at this stage of their learning.
In KS2, we add more complex structures to reading, writing, and speaking. This is the next step to get children ready for KS3, making sure they have a solid foundation where they will be confident to continue learning the language. They learn about types of words, conjugation of verbs, and other grammar topics, as well as practical topics like ordering food at a restaurant or asking for directions.
The curriculum is in constant development to accommodate the increasing level of the pupils who started learning Spanish since Year Reception (2017).