Modern foreign languages
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart."
Nelson Mandela.”
Intent
Spanish is spoken in 21 countries in the world and according to current statistics, there are 1.45 billion people who speak English, 1.12 billion people that speak Mandarin, 602 million speak Hindi, 548 million people who speak Spanish and 274 million who speak French. The children at Stanley Primary School, who do have holidays abroad, regularly holiday in Spain as opposed to France. In addition, Spanish is taught more than French in the feeder secondary schools. These are the reasons why we have chosen to teach Spanish in our school. At Stanley, we believe it is essential to provide our children with the best opportunities to develop meaningful connections and to communicate effectively with a diverse audience. We are confident that our Spanish lessons will play a vital role in achieving this goal.
Implementation
At Stanley Primary School, we teach Spanish regularly and consistently. Lessons are on a weekly rotation in Key Stage Two lasting a duration of 40 to 50 minutes.
At Stanley we follow the 'Language Angels' scheme of work that allows lessons to be extremely well structured, progressive and engaging for all learners. This scheme covers reading, writing, speaking, listening and building in opportunities for children to revisit knowledge at varying degrees of complexity at a variety of points throughout their four years of studying. Lessons are intended to be active and highly focused, with children working as a whole class, in small groups, or in mixed-ability pairs to complete tasks at their individual level. Work is differentiated in a variety of ways to accommodate children in the same class who are all at different stages of their language-learning journeys. Activities consist of games, stories, songs, phonics, grammar and sentence-building activities, rhymes, role-play and dictionary work, to name but a few.
European Day of Languages provides a valuable opportunity for our school community to celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity. It encourages pupils to appreciate the importance of language learning, not only as a means of communication but also as a way of fostering respect, curiosity, and understanding between different cultures. By marking this day, we highlight the lifelong benefits of language skills and inspire our pupils to see themselves as confident, global citizens. The countries children get to explore include; the UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Greece.
- Ensure that each child in Key Stage Two has the opportunity to study Spanish as a foreign language over four years, fostering their interest in the culture of Spain and the Hispanic world.
- Teach vocabulary and linguistic structures informed by the National Curriculum and the skills expressed therein: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (as well as Cultural Understanding).
- Enable children to ask and answer a range of questions about themselves, which would allow them to confidently address a Spanish speaker and exchange simple, personal information.
- Create opportunities for children to manipulate language for their own purposes, drawing on their knowledge of increasingly complex sentence structures.
- Teach children the basics of phonics in Spanish to allow them to spell in a phonetically plausible way and read and speak with increased confidence and improved pronunciation.
- Enable children to draw comparisons between Spanish and English vocabulary, using their knowledge of cognates and near-cognates to decode unfamiliar texts of increasing complexity.
- Encourage children to draw comparisons between Spanish and English grammar, syntax and sentence structure, both as a tool for developing their understanding of the Spanish language and their understanding of English.
- Give children opportunities to make, and learn from, mistakes in the target language, thereby building resilience.
- Develop children’s understanding of Spanish as a global language, and the reasons why it is spoken in countries other than Spain.
- Enable children to understand their place in the wider world and the concept of interdependence.
We understand that feedback is linked to progress and has to be timely to make an impact. In class, feedback is used to support teacher’s workload, ensure it is as immediate and timely and specific as possible, and leaves the teacher time to focus on individual identified needs. In Spanish, immediate feedback is provided to pupils to support them in developing their skills and knowledge within each lesson.
Impact
At Stanley Primary School, we believe that learning Spanish has a profound and lasting impact on our pupils, both academically and personally. Through engaging and well-structured lessons, children not only acquire the ability to communicate in another language but also develop a deeper awareness of different cultures and ways of life. This cultural understanding helps to nurture empathy, respect, and curiosity about the wider world, qualities that are essential in today’s interconnected society. Learning Spanish also strengthens core skills such as problem-solving, memory, creativity, and resilience, as children are encouraged to think in new and flexible ways. Beyond language proficiency, pupils gain confidence in expressing themselves, perseverance in mastering new challenges, and the ability to adapt their communication for different audiences. By the time they leave Stanley, our children will take with them not only a solid foundation in Spanish but also transferable skills that will support them in all areas of their education and prepare them to thrive as confident, open-minded citizens.