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Crane Park Primary School

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Modern Foreign Languages

‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world.’

Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

Intent

Learning languages at school provides children with valuable cognitive, cultural, and social benefits. It enhances brain development by improving memory, problem-solving, and multitasking skills. Languages equip children with essential tools for success in an increasingly multicultural British society, helping them to connect with people from different backgrounds. Our MFL curriculum at Crane Park Primary School is taught through the language of Spanish.

 

There are multiple reasons why we, as a school, have chosen to teach Spanish. As one of the most widely spoken languages globally, Spanish opens doors to better communication with diverse communities and mastering Spanish offers academic and career advantages in the future, giving our students an edge in fields like business, healthcare, and international relations. Locally, we have access to native Hispanic Spanish teachers and we know that this language is widely offered at KS3 in many Hounslow secondary schools; we provide our learners with an excellent grounding in Spanish at KS2 to encourage them to study the language further.

 

Implementation

Our MfL curriculum is designed in collaboration with KS3 Spanish teachers, to ensure children have acquired a good level of competence on which they can build at KS3. Our broad and balanced curriculum builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. It is a spiral curriculum, with key areas revisited again and again with increasing complexity, which ensures the progression of the four key skills in language learning: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Across these four skills, we teach three core strands of language learning:   

 

  • Phonics – the key components of the sound-writing relationship
  • Vocabulary – a set of the most frequently used words
  • Grammar – the essential building blocks required to create simple sentences independently (including gender of nouns, singular and plural forms, adjectives (place and agreement), and the conjugation of key verbs)

 

Impact

Children partake in a range of types of formative assessment in all four key skills, informing the structure and content of future Spanish lessons.

We aim for all children to leave Crane Park with a fascination in Spanish language and culture, and ability to confidently use the language independently in situations such as a family holiday to Spain.

 

If you visited a MfL lesson at Crane Park you would see: 

  • A native Hispanic speaker igniting a passion for the language
  • Children who are able to read and understand Spanish words and phrases from both the IWB and resources in their books
  • Children learning to write in Spanish using the correct spelling, punctuation and accents above letters
  • Pupils confidently speaking in Spanish with the correct pronunciation
  • Children listening to the teacher, their peers and other adults in the room a speaking Spanish, demonstrating their understanding by responding appropriately
  • Exciting games being played to engage children and encourage the retention of new words
  • Thoughtfully-prepared resources to support children practicing the language

 

Pupil Voice (quotes across KS2)

Year 3 pupil – ‘I can say ola and adiós now, and I even say it at home to my mum and dad!’.

 

Year 4 pupil – ‘I like it when we get asked questions and I can answer back in Spanish because I feel like an expert!’

 

Year 6 pupil - 'It’s a really interesting language and I really hope that I get to carry on doing it at secondary school.’

 

Cultural Capital

During their lessons, the teacher refers to many areas of Spanish culture, and the children benefit from having a native Hispanic speaker teaching them.

 

How do the pupils at Crane Park Primary School develop the school values through MfL? 

We have created a set of values that we feel are critical to becoming effective learners. We want to enable our children to be ‘lifelong learners’ by following our lifelong values:

 

Aspirational – children aspire to become as fluent as their teacher, and learning about Spanish culture promotes an interest in visiting Spain and other Hispanic countries in the future 

Respectful – pupils understand that around the world, people speak and behave differently to them, and this is something to explore and celebrate; they also learn how to greet one another politely and in each lesson they use phrases such as please and thank you

Integrity – learners ask for help where they may need further modelling of the language 

Responsible – pupils take responsibility for completing their independent work to a high standard, applying the vocabulary they have learnt in each lesson

Co-operative – children work together to practice conversations and vocabulary, as well as completing written tasks in pairs

Kind - pupils learn to correct one another’s pronunciation sensitively