Spanish

At Gamlingay, the intention of our MFL curriculum is to develop an interest in and thirst for learning other languages. We aim to introduce the learning of the Spanish language and the understanding of its culture in enjoyable and stimulating ways. We hope to embed the essential skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing. We aim to build the children’s ‘culture capital’ so that they are aware of similarities and differences between cultures. In short, we hope to lay the foundations for future language learning. 

We teach our children Spanish to generate a fascination for words and how language works, a wider curiosity about the peoples and cultures of Spanish-speaking countries and the foundational knowledge to support confident communication in Spanish. 

Essential Knowledge 

We teach three core strands of essential knowledge:   

1. Phonics – the key components of the sound-writing relationship 
2. Vocabulary – a set of the most frequently used words 
3. Grammar – the essential building blocks required to create simple sentences independently (including gender of nouns, singular and plural forms, adjectives (place and agreement), and the conjugation of key verbs) 

Our Spanish curriculum is designed to enable our children to: 

• Develop linguistic and communicative competence 
• Extend their knowledge of how language works 
• Explore similarities and differences between Spain, any heritage languages our children have, and English 

The teaching of a foreign language to every child in KS2 is a statutory requirement, as set out in the National Curriculum Programmes of Study (2014). 

In line with the NC PoS, our children learn to: 

• Listen and show understanding by joining in and responding 
• Link the sound, spelling and meaning of words 
• Read aloud with accurate pronunciation  
• Read and show understanding of phrases and simple texts 
• Speak in sentences 
• Describe people, places, things in speech and writing 
• Ask and answer questions 
• Express opinions 
• Write phrases from memory 
• Adapt phrases to create new sentences 
• Use a dictionary  

Our children also learn key cultural and country-specific knowledge. For example, by the end of KS2, our children: 

• can name and locate on a map countries where Spanish is spoken 
• know the key geographical features of Spain, including continent, surrounding seas and oceans, main mountains and rivers, capital city 
• know the name and some detail about at least one festival or tradition from Spain  
• know at least one typical food from Spain 

Spanish is taught in Years 3 to 6 as it is taught as the main language in our feeder school, Comberton Village College. Spanish is the second most widely spoken languages worldwide and it is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Due to its Latin roots, many words are similar to other Latin-based languages such as French, Portuguese and Italian. 

Knowledge Organisers

KS2

Language Progression

Year 3

Autumn Term

Spring Term

Summer Term

Year 4

Autumn Term

Spring Term

Summer Term

Year 5

Autumn Term

Spring Term

Summer Term

Year 6

Autumn Term

Autumn Term 2

Spring Term

Summer Term