Modern Foreign Languages

Spanish Curriculum at Manor Fields Primary School

Spanish Curriculum Intent

We are committed to providing a high-quality Spanish education for all our children. By doing so we will equip them with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed beyond the school gates in the wider world.             

Spanish lessons at Manor Fields are the foundation upon which children build their understanding of the world. As a result of a rigorous enquiry-based approach, pedagogy, all children will know what it means to be a member of a multi-cultural society and the benefits it brings: to become immersed in and inspired by other offerings that the world has.  Underpinning all lessons is a rigorous focus on developing and securing Spanish language skills whilst also ensuring sound progression of knowledge and sequenced understanding of key concepts. As teachers, we aspire to ensure that the skills taught are transferable throughout their time at Manor Field and also further into their education. Our core aims are to:

• Be inquisitive curious Spanish speakers who can ask, answer, analyse and draw contrasts about key concepts and questions
• Have appropriate vocabulary that allows children to talk confidently and coherently about known Spanish.
• Develop extensive, retained knowledge.
• Learn another language to support understanding of cultures unlike our own. This also promotes greater tolerance, empathy and acceptance of others.

Curriculum design and implementation

Our overarching aim for Spanish at Manor Fields is for all children to develop an understanding of:

• British Values: Pupils are taught about historical, cultural and religious differences between the UK and Spain. Children will explore their own individual liberty by considering themselves as global citizens - beginning to explore possibilities for travelling to, or working in, other parts of the world when they are older.
• Happy and Healthy: As we grow older, our memory begins to fade. Learning a foreign language keeps your memory sharp.
• Life skills: By learning Spanish, you will be better able to communicate with Spanish speakers.
• Successful: Being able to speak Spanish greatly enhances your opportunities. If you are bilingual, you are more competitive in the workplace.

Our curriculum is designed in such a way that, over the course of study, teaching is designed to help learners to remember in the long term the content they have been taught and how to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.

Each year group studies between 10 to 12 topics a year. Learning themes are organised in different units each half term order to give children key skills, following the National Curriculum, to developing: listening, speaking, reading, writing, phonics, grammar and culture in the Spanish.  By revisiting learning, we strive to ensure that children have diverse opportunities to deepen their understanding.

Listening: Children listen attentively and show understanding by joining and responding during Spanish lesson. 

Children explore the patterns and sounds of Spanish through songs and rhymes and link the spelling, sounds and meaning of words from Reception to Year 6. 

Speaking: During Spanish lesson, children are engaging in conversations; asking and answering questions; expressing opinions and responding to those of others; 

Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures. 

Reading: At the end of Year 6, children can read Spanish basic vocabulary and show understanding of words, phrases and simple writing. 

They broaden their vocabulary introduced through written material, including using a dictionary. 

Writing: Children from Year 1 can write specific words. At the end of Year 6, children can create phrases from memory and adapt these to make new sentences, describing places, things and actions orally and in writing. 

Grammar: From Reception, we use present tense and basic grammar. At the end of year 6, children will recognise the different between feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency verbs; how to apply these, to build sentences and how these differ from English. 

Phonics: Learning phonetics helps with recognizing both familiar and unfamiliar sounds, improves pronunciation skills, and develops autonomy in words and sound recognition. That is the reason why in Spanish´s phonics is teach from Reception to Year 6 through a variety of activities and games.

In order to develop well rounded and successful Spanish learners, we take guidance from the National Curriculum whilst understanding the need to personalise the curriculum for our children.  We expose our children to planned and differentiated lessons which are taught with a clear Spanish objective. Thanks to carefully planned progression documents, we can ensure that during our dedicated lessons, we can ensure continuity and progression across the key stages.

Knowledge Acquisition and Lesson Design:

Spanish is taught every term in topics/units of learning that focus upon Spanish skills and knowledge. Most lessons have a similar structure though the initial lesson is often designed as a ‘hook’ to captivate the children’s interest:

Starter– All lessons will begin by recapping prior knowledge and specific vocabulary. Following this will be the introduction of the Learning objective for the lesson.

Main body of lesson- Each lesson will place phonics, grammar or specific vocabulary within a carefully planned sequence of learning.

​Plenary - reflection is a core component of teaching at Manor Fields and gives all children the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding and reflect on the learning process. The delivered content can also be carefully tracked through verbal and writing assessment during each the lesson.

Curriculum Impact

To measure the impact of this approach, we ensure that emphasis is placed on thinking and questioning which helps pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Spanish. In Spanish, impact can be assessed through:

• Children’s curiosity
• Assessments
• Quizzes
• Spanish-English dictionary.
• Spanish games
• International project with a Spanish School.
• Poems, videos and songs.
• History books and Spanish Culture.
• Spanish Club
• Apps such as: Duolingo or FunSpanish.
• Websites such as: Rockalingua or Kahoot.
• Exercises related to the content to be learned.

Spanish Curriculum coverage

As the Spanish curriculum for MFL in primary it is not specific, we adapt to our school basic on:

• the Languages Programme of Study KS2: National Curriculum in England;
• 2013 Chris Quigley Education Ltd;
• Spanish GCSE Subject content 2022
• ELE (Español Lengua Extranjera).

In Spanish, children are taught to develop different skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing and grammar) during the lesson. 

Our curriculum is built on closing the word gap. Appropriate Spanish topic vocabulary is explicitly taught and children are expected to use and understand it. 

At the end of Year 6 children in Manor Fields Primary School will be able to speak Spanish with confidence, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions.

Children will be able to write at varying length, using different grammar structures that they have learnt since Year 1, as we believe that the earlier children start learning, the easier it will be for them to become fluent. This will help them to explore their own individual liberty by considering themselves as global citizens and beginning to explore possibilities for travelling to, or even working in, other parts of the world where Spanish is speaking.

Knowing Spanish will help our children to understand and appreciate other cultures and Hispanic cultural contributions too.