Our Ambition
Speaking and listening is a fundamental part of learning as children engage with the world around them by sharing their thoughts and listening to others. However, it could be easy in day-to-day life for children to forget that the English language is only one of many, and that studying and working exists as an opportunity for them beyond their hometown, county and country. At Buckton Fields, we aim for our children to be aware of other cultures and how widening their knowledge of languages can benefit future endeavours.
Therefore, we choose to start our children immersing themselves in the Spanish language right from the start in Early Years, as this has been shown by studies to have a positive impact on a child’s ability to understand and retain new language forms, and builds an excitement and passion for modern foreign languages that will carry them through primary and beyond. Spanish continues as part of our fun and creative curriculum throughout the school. Our aim is that our children develop an ability to learn a new language, be aware of the inter-connectivity of today’s world and build a foundation for learning further languages.
Our Implementation
The children learn Spanish from a language specialist throughout their time at the school. The lessons progress year on year to ensure they are exposed to a range of vocabulary, themes and content. The children’s Spanish lessons are fun, interactive and accessible to all whilst boosting their self-confidence, self-esteem and enhancing their natural creativity and curiosity. Our Spanish specialist also offers an afterschool club within school to encourage budding language enthusiasts!
During their lessons, there is a focus for the children to develop their confidence and enthusiasm for speaking, listening, reading and writing in a new language. Throughout this curriculum, they will have the opportunity to:
Each element will build throughout the school, year on year, to ensure unnecessary repetition and misconceptions are avoided and that knowledge is varied and skills are progressive. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, the curriculum focuses on learning vocabulary and phrases across a range of topics and in Key Stage 2, the children’s bank of vocabulary builds and challenges more conversational language, as well as writing.
Our Impact
The progressive nature of our curriculum, alongside the ability for our children to carry on their language studies in afterschool clubs, will ensure that our children have the foundations of understanding another language and cultural development. Ultimately, our ambition is that the impact of the curriculum will enable our children to be linguistically confident, passionate about other languages and well prepared to approach the range of languages taught in Y7 and beyond.