Burnley Road Academy Spanish

Intent

We have chosen to teach Spanish as a way to introduce our children to life in another culture and learn a new language. We aim to foster curiosity about Spain and deepen our children's understanding of the world outside the UK. We intend our children to understand and respond to both spoken and written language and to speak with increasing confidence and fluency. We intend them to be able to find ways to communicate what they want to say by continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation. We also intend for them to be able to write at varying lengths, for different purposes, using appropriate grammar.

Our academy values are developed through Spanish by teaching children to show courage and perseverance when learning a new language; they develop teamwork when working together on tasks and show compassion for themselves and others when learning is difficult.

Implementation

Spanish is taught in Years 3 - 6 using a scheme  designed by primary teachers. Each class has a one hour lesson every week. Pupils are taught to listen carefully to spoken language, to show understanding and join in by responding. They are taught to spell and understand the meanings of a wide range of words. Children engage in conversations asking and answering questions, noticing similarities and differences and expressing likes and dislikes. They are encouraged to develop accurate pronunciation. During lessons children prepare and present ideas and information to their partner or to the class. Different topics are introduced each year thereby broadening vocabulary and children’s ability to understand new words. Children are expected to write phrases from memory to express ideas clearly. They regularly have opportunities to describe people, places and things orally and in writing.  They are taught to understand basic grammar, appropriate to Spanish, including gender and the conjugation of verbs and how to apply these to build sentences.

Impact

Children leave Burnley Road Academy with an understanding of Spain, Spanish culture and the Spanish language. They can apply their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to write short sentences and have short conversations explaining likes and dislikes, similarities and differences and ask and answer questions. They leave more able to learn another language, with a better understanding of another country and curiosity about the wider world.