Spanish is one of the languages most spoken in the world. There are over 400 million Spanish speakers world-wide. By learning Spanish at Calverton, we help our KS2 pupils (Year 3 to Year 6) to get to know the culture and help them to be citizens of the world. The ability to understand another language (such as Spanish) enables children to gain important insights which monolinguals cannot.

By learning Spanish, children can further career opportunities. The demand for bilingual employees is increasing in today’s world, and a candidate who speaks any second language is generally going to have an advantage when applying for a job. At Calverton, we have high expectations of all children. The Spanish curriculum includes a range of every day topics like greetings, the weather, numbers, colours, days, months and seasons, the house, the city, clothes, animals, ordering food in a restaurant (to mention a few) and these topics link with the topic being taught in each year group every term as much as possible.

Lessons include speaking and listening, reading and writing, and children are encouraged to self-assess and assess their peers at the end of every topic/theme along with an assessment marked out of 10 just like in a Spanish school. Children are knowledgeable of the contents of their learning throughout the year from September, and they gain a sense of achievement and progression every time they evaluate their learning and get their teacher’s assessment comments.

Children also learn about the culture and traditions of Spain and other Spanish speaking countries and have a fantastic opportunity to experience dancing and cooking workshops. There are Spanish displays in the school that reflect the range of themes covered and also show the work of KS2 children.

Oracy is embedded in the lessons and pupils are taught and encouraged to include the different elements of “good oracy” in their Spanish speech. Constructive critique follows children’s interventions regularly in order to promote peer support and feeding back skills.

Spanish lessons also promote, encourage and celebrate the school learning powers and children focus on one or two of them (for a period of time) that will help them achieve their full potential in this subject.

Some of the skills covered during the Spanish lessons are:

• Speaking and listening (paired and group conversations)
• Reading
• Writing and dictation
• Grammar, always linking and comparing with English grammar
• Turn taking, cooperation and peer support