MfL
St Edward's - A caring Christian Community where children achieve their potential, are confident in themselves and their abilities and are set on a positive path for life.
One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way
Frank Smith
At St Edward's, we recognise that learning a foreign language can provide an opening to other cultures and deepens pupil’s understanding of the world around them. We believe that high-quality foreign language education should foster pupils’ curiosity and immerse them in a variety of cultures and practices.
Teaching enables pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and allows them to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and writing.
It also provides opportunities for them to communicate for practical purposes. Pupils should be encouraged to learn new ways of thinking and to read literature in the original language. Through effective teaching we feel that the study of a language can enable of pupils to study and work in other countries in their future years.
Throughout the scheme of work we use (Primary Languages Network), there are opportunities for children to introduce and practise appropriate target language vocabulary, to identify and use nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions in the target language, to explore and build a secure understanding of the target language phonics, and to find out more about the culture of the target language countries.
There is access to native speaker pronunciation in every lesson. Progression in vocabulary acquisition, grammar, and phonics, is planned for and built in across the 4 stages. Language learning skills and links between languages and literacy are explored age and stage appropriately. Within the body of the lessons there are planned for/ suggested opportunities to sing, play games, perform, develop extended writing (Rainbow Writing), keep a record, and make links across the curriculum.
A Curriculum for Our Children
We have identified some core barriers that the children of our school may face when they are accessing the curriculum, and we intend to deliver the Modern Foreign Language curriculum with an approach that addresses these:
- Communication and teamwork skills – our Spanish curriculum allows for plenty of speaking and listening opportunities. Most lessons place a huge emphasis on the development of speaking skills, and teachers ensure that all children are given plenty of chances to speak aloud via talk partners as well as whole-class talk.
- Resilience – we design challenging tasks in our language curriculum, allowing children to experience failure and errors in a safe environment, scaffolded by the implementation of growth mindset training
- Differing and sometimes limited life experiences – We are aware that while some children may have travelled and have experience of language outside of our country, others may have very limited experience and knowledge of culture and language elsewhere. Our curriculum ensures there are plenty of videos and pictures to help children with this.
A Curriculum for All Children
Ambition
Our ambition for all learners is that by the time children leave year 6, they are at an entry level corresponding to the MFL curriculum in KS3 and are able to make the transition to secondary smoothly using their previous learning and knowledge from KS2.
SEND is not a not a limiting factor.
Access (How we might support children with SEND to attain in language lessons at St Edward's)
- Teachers and teaching assistants will check in with pupils in each lesson and will make adaptations if necessary
- Visuals are used to support learning as much as possible
- Vocabulary and knowledge are revisited at the start of lessons so that children are given repeated exposure to the same words etc and given plenty of opportunities to apply it within different contexts.
- Scaffolding may be provided when necessary
EYFS and KS1
While
Assessment in Spanish at St Edward's
Accordion content