Spanish

At Catton Grove Primary School, we experience and practice every single one of our core values through our approach to language learning. By delivering a high quality, coherent and ambitious curriculum, we embark children on a long and exciting journey and cultivate linguists who feel passionately about learning languages. We prepare our children to be successful global citizens who understand and feel empowered in the world which they inherit.

We believe that learning a foreign language is not simply a way to communicate with others; it plays a fundamental role in helping our children to better understand their world. It is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. This is at the heart of our intent.

Learning a language and exploring its culture forms an important part in our commitment to provide our children with the cultural capital they need to be successful beyond their local area. We understand that this matters at Catton Grove more than at many schools; a large number of our families have limited geographical and social mobility, therefore the responsibility to 'switch them on' to the world around them can lie entirely with us.

Nationally, we know that the most disadvantaged students are less likely to study languages at GCSE and go on to have international experiences - we want to break this pattern. Studying languages at GCSE and beyond offers children enhanced communication and adaptability skills, a deeper cultural awareness, the edge in the jobs market and flexibility to travel, study or work abroad. Therefore, by committing to high quality and passionate language learning at Catton Grove, we are setting our children up for success.

By giving children a positive experience of learning Spanish at Catton Grove, we give them a portal to the outside world and set them up for exciting opportunities to travel and work abroad in later life. Furthermore, by teaching a foreign language with the skill and passion which it deserves, we can foster analytical, critical and creative thinking which enriches our children and teaches them about respect, tolerance and difference.

Our curriculum and approach to learning languages is set up to give children a flying start to learn languages at KS3 and beyond. We focus on children making substantial progress in Spanish and base our teaching around the three pillars of language learning: phonology, grammatical structures and grammar. By doing this, we are confident that children's language skills and knowledge are transferable even if they go on to study another language at KS3. We focus on all four skills of language learning: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Finally, we ensure that our curriculum is full of meaningful opportunities to communicate for practical
purposes as we know that children learn better when the content feels important and relevant.

We do not withdraw SEND or EAL children from Spanish lessons. We have a responsibility to ensure that every single Catton Grove child has opportunities to feel successful in language learning. Furthermore, we know that learning a language can provide an opportunity to level the playing field for SEND and EAL children, and they are a real asset to the subject!

When our children leave us, we want them to view themselves as competent linguists. They will be able to: confidently ask and answer questions; create and perform a short conversation; read a paragraph and pick out the key points and write a paragraph in the target language. We believe that having high expectations and getting it right now matters.