Teaching a foreign language at primary school allows children to deepen their understanding of the world and unlocks a world of opportunity for our pupils. We aim to foster pupils’ curiosity and deepen their knowledge of the world.

Although there is no statutory requirement to teach a foreign language in Early Years or KS1, it is recognised that many of the children are already fluent in a language other than English when they arrive at the school. Throughout their school life, we celebrate this linguistic diversity and acknowledge the importance of children sustaining the development of their mother tongue, with teachers encouraging children to share the languages they know.

We teach the National Curriculum for Languages focusing on the key concepts of:

• Speaking
• Listening
• Reading
• Writing

As a school, we teach Spanish as our modern foreign language in KS2, as this is one of the most commonly taught languages at our local secondary schools.

Our language curriculum focuses initially on speaking and listening, engaging the children through song, poetry etc. As the children move through the school, they will begin to read and write in Spanish.

Each year group’s curriculum builds on the learning from previous years, recognising that, when learning a new language, it is essential to revisit past learning regularly to enable the children to remember more and do more in the subject. By the KS2, we want our children to have developed the foundations and confidence for continuing to learn languages at secondary school and equipping them to study and work in other countries in their futures.