As we are becoming an increasingly multicultural society, we have a duty to provide our children with an understanding of other cultures and languages. At St Luke’s RC we believe that learning another language gives children a new and broader perspective on the world, encouraging them to understand their own cultures and those of others, which feeds into our focus on being “Lukies”; We are Loving learning another language, we understand that we are all Unique and all speak different languages, we are Kind about different cultures, we are Inclusive and would welcome anyone whose first language isn’t English, we are Empathetic learners and we Strive to do our best during Spanish lessons.

Children develop their love of language learning and develop skills throughout their time in school. From Reception upwards, children begin their language learning journey. A whole school celebration on European Day of Languages, which all children participate in, celebrates language learning and our wider position in the world through role-play, research and music.

In KS2, children are taught Spanish across three half terms through participating in songs, stories, actions, rhymes and games as well as written and oral activities. We believe it is important for children to practise writing, as well as speaking, in Spanish as they progress through KS2. Our school follows a bespoke Spanish curriculum, which was designed in partnership with the Spanish lead at Ambrose Barlow RC High School, to ensure the children are high school ready by the time they reach Year 7. The topics covered at KS2 have been chosen to ensure the children have a solid foundation of basic Spanish vocabulary.

Our Spanish curriculum will ensure all pupils develop their Spanish vocabulary and a love of languages and learning about other cultures as well as key language learning skills, as set out by the national curriculum. The key skills as set out by the national curriculum are as follows:

• 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 writing in the language studied.

Key Stage 2 have weekly Spanish lessons for three half terms where we aim to develop a love of languages and an understanding of other cultures alongside language development.

When the children do not have a Spanish unit for the half term, teachers revisit taught vocabulary within their classrooms.

Across KS2, children cover the topics ‘Greetings’, ‘Family’, ‘Numbers’ and ‘Classroom Instructions’.

If you would like to practise your Spanish at home, use the BBC Bitesize link here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zxsvr82