Intent

At Maltby Manor, we aim to offer vibrant learning experiences that are designed to meet the needs of each child. Languages are a great opportunity to engage every child as most children arrive on a level playing field with little prior knowledge of the subject. We aim to encourage a love of learning languages; foster a curiosity of learning about other cultures whilst developing each individual as a global citizen with a growing knowledge of the world around us. We believe that this global awareness is embedded throughout our curriculum in our position as a Rights Respecting School.

In EYFS and Key Stage 1, the children are made aware of other cultures and societies through learning about traditions and customs throughout the world. Once the children arrive in Key Stage 2, the language taught at Maltby Manor is Spanish and the children access this on at least a fortnightly basis, weekly where possible. Spanish is taught so that they are prepared for the next stage of their languages education once they move on to Maltby Academy. We believe that it is important to progressively build on acquired knowledge throughout their time at Maltby Manor and as such, the curriculum has been designed to build on skills and knowledge as the children move through Years 3 – 6. Songs and real-life experiences such as sampling a continental breakfast help to make the learning experience as engaging as possible for the children which also makes the learning more relevant and meaningful to each child.

Overall Aims:

• To enable to children to understand and respond to spoken and written language.
• To give opportunities to speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity.
• To encourage the children to write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences.
• To provide the children with the chance to discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Implementation

In EYFS and KS1, children are not explicitly taught Spanish in the traditional form of learning a language. However, they are given the opportunity to learn about the world around them based on different cultures and traditions that may or may not relate to the Spanish speaking world. This could be through an ongoing topic such as Chinese New Year in EYFS or through the themed ‘Global Citizenship Days’ that are held annually and cover EYFS all the way up to Year 6. Previous themed days have concentrated on being a refugee in different parts of the world; countries participating in key sporting events; traditional food and the different social aspects behind the production of food in a chosen country and more. As such, the children have learnt about customs and traditions in countries such as Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, Japan and many others. This links to our school status as a Unicef Rights Respecting School and also allows the children to begin learning about countries outside of their normal environment before going to learn a language more explicitly once they start in Year 3 and continue to do so up to Year 6.

From Year 3 and onwards up to Year 6, the children receive regular Spanish lessons, and they are delivered by the class teachers from Y3-Y5 and a specialist language teacher from Maltby Academy in Year 6. Staff have access to the resource ‘Language Angels’ to support their professional development and help to strengthen their subject knowledge whilst ensuring that the coverage is consistent and in line with the other primary academies in the trust.

The children further their learning about culture and traditions by looking at aspects such as Easter, Christmas and they also experience a Spanish breakfast to give their learning a practical and hands-on approach to make it more relevant and personal to the children. Songs are used throughout KS2 as a way of supporting the children in learning new vocabulary and to help them become immersed in the Spanish language. The four key skills – reading, writing, speaking and listening are taught throughout and make up a part of each individual lesson. This goes alongside the themed days previously mentioned and other opportunities the children will be given to help learn about other countries and their traditions such as Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, Romans and other topics covered through KS2.