The National Curriculum states:

Learning a foreign language is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality languages education should foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world. The teaching should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It should also provide opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking and read great literature in the original language. Language teaching should provide the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

How we meet these aims

Our INTENT for the Languages curriculum is for all children at St Mary's to be able to communicate ideas, facts and feelings in speech and writing in another language. During their time with us, all children will develop their confidence in listening, speaking, reading and writing skills so that they can:

• 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
• 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.

We have chosen a Spanish language curriculum that offers a coherently planned sequence of lessons, ensuring progressive coverage of the skills required by the national curriculum. Our chosen themes - Our Past, Let's Explore a Spanish Town and Discovering Spain - provide an introduction to the culture of Spanish-speaking countries and communities. It aims to foster children’s curiosity and help deepen their understanding of the world. A linear curriculum has been chosen to allow an opportunity for children to gradually build on their skills. It enables children to express their ideas and thoughts in Spanish, providing opportunities for them to interact and communicate with others for practical purposes both in speech and in writing. We aim to expose children to authentic Spanish and offer regular opportunities to listen to native speakers.

The intent in Lower KS2 is that children acquire basic skills and understanding in Spanish with a strong emphasis placed on developing their Speaking and Listening ability. These will be further developed in Upper KS2 alongside Reading and Writing skills, gradually progressing to more complex language concepts and greater learner autonomy.