Intent
A high quality languages education should foster children’s curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. At the Federation of St Cuthbert’s and St Sebastian’s, we are committed to ensuring that competence and enthusiasm in learning another language enables children to interpret, create and exchange meaning within and across cultures. Both schools are Centres of Excellence for Spanish (two of only several across the city). We endeavour to guide our children to become and grow as global citizens, developing skills that will open further opportunities later in life. The teaching of Spanish in EYFS, KS1 and KS2 focuses on the 4 areas: reading, writing (KS2), speaking and listening and provides an appropriate balance of these domains, laying the foundations for further foreign language teaching at KS3. Both feeder schools (Broughton Hall and Cardinal Heenan) offer Spanish as a choice of MFL.
Implementation
Children are introduced to Spanish from the EYFS and receive a weekly lesson (EYFS – Y1: 30 minutes & Y2-Y6: 45 minutes) from a native speaking teacher. This is the case for each year group. This enables the children to develop early language acquisition skills that facilitate their understanding of the patterns of language and how these differ from, or are similar to English. Lessons across the Key Stages support the skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing (KS2):
- Children are taught to listen attentively to spoken language and respond, joining in with songs, rhymes and games.
- Children develop an appreciation of a variety of stories, songs, poems and rhymes in Spanish that are delivered through the curriculum content as well as by a native Spanish speaker.
- Links have been developed with secondary schools and both feeder schools offer Spanish as the MFL choice.
- Children have an international link with a school in Seville.
- Spanish lessons are complimented by the SIL scheme of work.
- Planned activities through reaccreditation of The International School Award (both schools hold platinum status) celebrate Spanish language, and culture as well as traditions, cultures and celebrations of many countries, allowing children to develop as global citizens.
- International Week enables the whole school to be immersed in the inclusion of the culture and use the language meaningfully in context.
Impact
Our MFL curriculum ensures that children develop their knowledge of where different languages, including the range of home languages spoken by the families of the school, are spoken in the world. Varied learning experiences, including ‘International Week’ ensures that languages are celebrated throughout the school community whilst providing a context for language learning as well as developing the children’s understanding of different cultures and global issues. Innovative approaches to MFL have also enabled the achievement of the British Council’s ‘International School Award’ across the federation.
We believe our children will:
- Acquire an appreciation, enjoyment and life-long love of languages
- Develop confident and positive attitudes towards language learning
- Demonstrate awareness of culture, traditions and languages spoken by families across the federation.
- Demonstrate their pride and the high status of MFL through classroom, school and online display of their quality work.