The MFL (Spanish) Curriculum at West Jesmond
Curiosity, Confidence, Creativity and Community
MFL Curriculum Aims
‘A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers.’ National Curriculum
Children in West Jesmond speak over 23 different home languages and many are bi-lingual. We celebrate, share and champion the opportunities, advantages and experiences our children will have through the knowledge of more than one language. We want every child to be passionate, curious and confident about their foreign language learning abilities and to have the desire to continue learning a language after Key Stage 2.
Our children will develop and demonstrate substantial progress in the 5 key language skills necessary for learning Spanish (Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing and Grammar) and will achieve the National Curriculum end of Key Stage 2 aims:
All pupils:
- Understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
- Speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
- Can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
- Discover and develop an appreciation of a range of authentic writing in the language studied.
Our ambitious MFL curriculum is accessible to all pupils through careful ongoing scaffolding and adaptations as we aim to develop solid foundations in these key language learning skills - properly preparing them for the next stage of their language learning journey. We will extend their knowledge of how language works and explore the similarities and differences between the foreign language they are learning and English.
In MFL we actively build up our children’s sense of community and strengthen their sense of identity through learning about cultures in other countries and comparing it with their own. As part of this aim, we are developing a link with Fleming College in Trujillo, Peru.
Implementation
Learning a foreign language is part of the primary National Curriculum and is a requirement for all children within Key Stage 2 (KS2). West Jesmond Primary School has adopted a whole school approach to the teaching of Spanish to all KS2 pupils. We have chosen Spanish as we feel it is an accessible language for early language learners, it is one of the languages taught in Key Stage 3 at Jesmond Park Academy and many other secondary schools in the area.
Spanish is taught across Key Stage 2 by our specialist Spanish teacher, Mrs Pocock. Mrs Pocock is passionate about Spanish and has experience in teaching it from nursery age right up to Key Stage 5. She has spent time living in Spain and Peru and her love of Spanish has led her to travel independently to countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and Cuba meaning she is well placed to interweave her cultural knowledge into lessons.
Lessons are planned using the Language Angels scheme of work and enhanced by Mrs Pocock’s adaptations and additions based on her experience and the needs of our children. Language Angels was selected for the rigour and the quality of planning and resources and the ambition for all children to succeed. Spanish is also revisited by the pupils throughout the year by having a class access code to games and activities on the Pupil Area of the Language Angels website. Mrs Pocock selects games and activities related to Units covered in class so that the children can revisit and consolidate at home what they have learnt in class.
Cultural Understanding:
Developing our children’s understanding life in Spain and Spanish speaking countries is a core part of our work. Our learning in Spanish lessons is enhanced by work in other subjects and our topic on Andalucía, links with Spanish speaking children and seizing opportunities across the curriculum to reinforce children’s knowledge of Spain and the Spanish speaking world. Our links with a school in Peru focus on using Spanish for a practical purpose and learning more about the culture of a Spanish speaking country.
Preparing for the next stage in our children’s learning.
We want to make the transition from languages in Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 as smooth as possible. We are in contact with staff at our local secondary schools to keep informed as to how we can best prepare our pupils for their next stage of their languages journey. We invite 2 teachers and 6th form pupils to work with our pupils here at West Jesmond. These collaborative mutually benefit both schools with the aim of exciting and motivating our pupils for their languages studies at Key Stage 3.
What you will see in a West Jesmond Spanish Lesson
- Engaging and inspiring lessons that promote creativity and curiosity.
- Lessons designed to motivate, captivate and interest children from the first moment.
- A focus in each lesson on a combination of the 5 key language learning skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing and grammar).
- Clear, achievable objectives and incorporating different learning styles.
- All activities are planned, scaffolded and adapted to ensure every child, including those with SEN, at West Jesmond can achieve highly in Spanish. This may include adapted resources, variation of task design, adult support and awareness of physical/sensory needs.
- Different levels of challenge are provided throughout each teaching unit and can be used in class or can be sent home to be completed as a homework exercise
- High quality instruction and questioning with teachers providing carefully planned sequenced and modelled lessons that build on children’s geographical knowledge and skills.
- Retrieval of previous learning and explicit links through concepts that connect new learning with what the children know.
- Interactive games (which pupils can access from home to consolidate their learning)
- High levels of engagement with frequent opportunities for children to discuss and review their learning
- An emphasis on correct and ambitious vocabulary.
- High quality verbal feedback during lessons.
Assessment of Pupil Learning & Progression
Our end of Key Stage 2 Milestones are based aligned to the National Curriculum Goals. Our assessment across Key Stage 2 is used to judge our children’s progress towards these goals and to ensure every child is on track to meet them.
By the end of key stage 2, pupils should be able to:
- Listen attentively to spoken language and show understanding by joining in and responding.
- Explore the patterns and sounds of language through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sound and meaning of words.
- Engage in conversations; ask and answer questions; express opinions and respond to those of others; seek clarification and help.
- Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures.
- Develop accurate pronunciation and intonation so that others understand when they are reading aloud or using familiar words and phrases.
- Present ideas and information orally to a range of audiences.
- Read carefully and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing.
- Appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language.
- Broaden their vocabulary and develop their ability to understand new words that are introduced into familiar written material, including through using a dictionary.
- Write phrases from memory, and adapt these to create new sentences, to express ideas clearly.
- Describe people, places, things and actions orally and in writing.
- Understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; key features and patterns of the language; how to apply these, for instance, to build sentences; and how these differ from or are similar to English.
Two forms of assessment are selected as appropriate for use at the end of every Language unit:
- Peer and self-assessment ‘I can do…’ grids. A quick and easy way for all pupils in the class to record which units they have completed and the progress they are making.
- More detailed skills based assessments using bespoke skills assessment worksheets. This form of assessment enables us to determine the learning and progression of all pupils in the key language learning skills as well as monitoring their progress against the 12 attainment targets stipulated in the DfE Languages Programme of Study for Key Stage 2.