Our Intent for Languages at Roundhill Primary School

“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” Flora Lewis

At Roundhill, we believe that learning a language is an essential part of being a member of a multi-cultural society and that it provides an opening into other cultures. Our aim is to provide a high-quality language education, through which children will learn to listen, speak, read and write in Spanish, whilst also fostering their curiosity to explore and understand societies and cultures from around the world.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela

Our intent is for all pupils to:

• 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 intend for children to leave Roundhill with a natural curiosity and confidence to explore other countries, cultures and languages, with an understanding that in a multi-lingual society, it is a valuable skill to be able to communicate effectively with others in another language.  We aim for them all to be engaged and prepared to continue language learning at Secondary School.

Implementation

Children in KS2 are taught Spanish weekly using the Language Angels resources. Units have been mapped to ensure that children learn how to communicate for a wide range of practical purposes and about topics that link to other subjects they are studying. Phonetic pronunciation and grammar lessons provide the foundations that can be applied to learning further languages. In Lower KS2, children acquire basic skills and understanding of Spanish with a strong emphasis placed on developing their Speaking and Listening skills. These will be embedded and further developed in Upper KS2, alongside Reading and Writing, gradually progressing onto more complex language concepts and greater learner autonomy.