MFL: Spanish

Spanish at Mansfield Primary Academy

For children to be provided with an opening to other cultures, fostering pupils’ curiosity and deepening their understanding of the world. Pupils will have the confidence to try and express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing.  They will have the opportunity to communicate for practical purposes and learn new ways of thinking. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

Opening the Mansfield GATE through Modern Foreign Languages

Mansfield Primary Academy's scheme of work and resources ensures we offer a relevant, broad, vibrant and ambitious foreign languages curriculum that will inspire and excite our pupils using a wide variety of topics and themes.

Generate

We generate language skills by giving children the opportunity to build and develop their understanding of Spanish from year 3 to year 6.

Aspire

All children aspire to be multilingual by developing curiosity and encourage through listening, speaking and writing through a variety of learning through song and stories.

Together

Children work together to discover the importance of other cultures through our Spanish curriculum and our European day of Languages.

Enquire

We enquire by exploring patterns in languages through building their knowledge and confidence to aid them in working or studying in foreign counties in later life.

Implementation

All classes will have access to a very high-quality foreign languages curriculum. This will progressively develop pupil skills in foreign languages through regularly taught and well-planned weekly lessons in Key Stage 2 which will be taught by teachers in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammar are built in.

Lessons and resources help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills. A series of lessons are suggested, providing structure and context as well as offering an insight into the culture of Spanish-speaking countries and communities. The introduction and revision of key vocabulary and grammatical structures is built into each lesson. This vocabulary is then included in display materials and additional resources so that children have opportunities to repeat and revise their learning.

Impact

As well as each subsequent lesson within a unit being progressive, the teaching drives and guarantees progressive learning and challenge. Units increase in level of challenge, stretch and linguistic and grammatical complexity as pupils move from Early Learning units through Intermediate units and into the most challenging Progressive units. Units in each subsequent level of the teaching type categories require more knowledge and application of skills than the previous teaching type. Activities contain progressively more text (both in English and the foreign language being studied) and lessons will have more content as the children become more confident and ambitious with the foreign language they are learning.

Using the full range of resources, including display materials, will increase the profile of languages across school. The learning environment will be consistent with key Spanish vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Whole-school and parental engagement will improve through the use of language-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning. We want to ensure that Spanish is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to embark on further language studies. Impact can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons and child-led assessment.