St Anne's Catholic Primary School

achieving excellence in all our God given talents

Lowe Street, Birmingham, West Midlands, B12 0ER

0121 675 5037

enquiry@st-annes.bham.sch.uk

MFL: Spanish

NUESTRA PÁGINA DE ESPAÑOL (OUR SPANISH PAGE)

Spanish Flag - John Wesley's New Room

At Saint Anne's, we believe that learning a new language is vital  because it creates so many positive opportunities for pupils and allows them to discover other cultures. Pupils at our school learn Spanish and enjoy the benefits of starting to learn a foreign language at an early age. We support the view that learning a modern foreign language is an entitlement for all pupils, regardless of their background and ability, and therefore all pupils are encouraged to develop their full potential in Spanish. Therefore, it’s our intent to teach languages so that children gain confidence, knowledge and transferable skills about modern foreign languages to help them to progress with Spanish at secondary school and hopefully beyond.

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things. (Flora Lewis)

Our school bases the core work in Spanish around the National Curriculum which aims to ensure that 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 they have learnt
  • discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied

Our MFL curriculum is designed to develop not only our children’s language skills, but also their love of learning a language. It progressively develops language skills across Key Stage Two. This allows the children to acquire new language then use and apply it in a range of different scenarios and topics. Children are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, singing activities and games. As their confidence and skill grows, children record their work through pictures, captions and sentences. 

Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammatical concepts are built into lessons. Lessons help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills.

All children in KS2  have Spanish lessons on a weekly basis by a specialist foreign languages teacher.

Languages Spoken at Pentacost

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (Acts 2:1-47)

 What does Spanish offer children? How does it enhance the curriculum?

  • Learning Spanish fosters children’s curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world.
  • It enables children to understand and communicate ideas, facts and feelings in another language.
  • Gives the children confidence in interacting with others.
  • Foreign language learning enhances listening skills and memory.
  • The learning of another language improves the knowledge of their own language – English vocabulary skills increase.

What use is it to children in later life? 

  • Awakens an interest in foreign cultures and life-styles.
  • International travel is made easier and more pleasant through knowing a foreign language.
  • Being able to learn, speak and understand another language gives you a better perspective on others.
  • Speaking another language enhances job opportunities in government, business, medicine, law, industry, marketing and the military.