Languages
Intent
At Drighlington Primary, we believe learning languages helps children appreciate different cultures while developing a sense of global citizenship. By acquiring a second language, pupils build confidence, aspiration, and life-long skills that support future education, employment, and personal growth. Our curriculum uses the Language Angels scheme to deliver a broad, vibrant, and ambitious foreign language program that inspires and excites pupils. Through a wide range of topics and themes, we aim to help all pupils reach their full potential by setting high expectations and excellent standards in their foreign language - the ultimate aim being that pupils will feel motivated and able to continue studying languages beyond key stage 2. Also, we encourage students to use their English skills as ‘language detectives’—developing problem-solving abilities and a growth mindset throughout their language learning journey.
Early exposure to Spanish enhances language acquisition and builds speaking confidence. Through learning Spanish, pupils not only gain communication skills but also a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, identity, and community. Our goal is to foster a lifelong passion for languages, equipping children with the curiosity and skills to continue their language learning journey.
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things but learning a different way to think about things.” (Flora Lewis, Journalist specialising in international affairs)
Implementation
Learning a foreign language provides an opening to other cultures, fosters children´s curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. All children regardless of their background and ability are encouraged to develop their full potential in Spanish.
Our MFL curriculum is designed to develop not only our children’s language skills, but also their love of learning a language. It progressively develops language skills across Key Stage Two. This allows the children to acquire new language then use and apply it in a range of different scenarios and topics. Children are encouraged and supported to develop their speaking and listening skills through conversational work, singing activities and games. As their confidence and skills grow, children record their work through pictures, captions and sentences.
Lessons are sequenced so that prior learning is considered and opportunities for revision of language and grammatical concepts are built into lessons. Lessons help children to build on prior knowledge alongside the introduction of new skills.
All pupils feel engaged and enjoy learning Spanish within the context of the culture of the Hispanic world. Formal lessons in Spanish start in Y3; however we offer wider Spanish cultural experiences throughout school. Every year, we celebrate European Day of Languages by having a Spanish cultural day. We have our very own Spanish Champions who support the work of learning languages and promote the subject across school.
Making birthday cards for our classmates. Year 3 making a traditional Spanish dessert - Torrijas.
Impact
Our MFL curriculum will ensure all children develop key language learning skills set out by the national curriculum, as well as a love of languages and learning about other cultures. By the end of year six, our children understand and respond to spoken and written language. They speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation. They can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learned. Through our curriculum enrichment, they develop a passion and love of languages.
Spanish Champions
In 2022, we introduced our Spanish Champions to Drighlington Primary. Each class, from Y3 to Y6, has 2 Spanish Champions who are responsible for promoting Spanish language use and a love of all things Spanish across the school. Each week they attend a meeting, where they decide on a theme and learn key pieces of Spanish vocabulary related to that theme. They then take back to their classes to learn that week. The aim is for the vocabulary to be words that can be used frequently, thus promoting retention. We started with greetings and words that could be used for answering the register - if you are in school at registration, you will hear the children responding to the register in a variety of different ways. By far the most popular part of the role has been the opportunity for the champions to go and teach the vocabulary to our younger pupils; every week they teach a short lesson to our YN-Y1 pupils and they really are skilled at it!
How you can help your child at home
Partnerships with parents and carers is an important part of Drighlington Primary School. Working closely with parents enables us to ensure parents feel confident that their child is safe, well looked and is receiving a high quality education during their school hours. The links below offer a range of resources that may also be useful to families:
A greetings song https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/ks1--ks2-mfl-spanish-greetings-with-ben-shires/zfksqp3
Introductions https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/spanish-ks2-introducing-yourself-in-spanish/zd2jmfr
Animals https://www.euroclub-schools.org/los-animales-spanish-song
Numbers https://www.euroclub-schools.org/numbers-1-to-10-spanish-song
Colours https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/spanish-ks2-painting-and-colours/zbcb47h
Family https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/spanish-ks2-meeting-a-spanish-family/z4d9wty
Telling the time https://www.euroclub-schools.org/telling-the-time-spanish-song
Weather https://www.euroclub-schools.org/spanish-weather-song
The date https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/znd86rd#z2bwh4j
Food and Revision https://www.digitaldialects.com/Spanish.htm
Word reference dictionary https://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=
Stories in Spanish https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/stories?fbclid=IwAR0dvE1xJ-bzmJXjQKpfhRAQu02fWIGHsc9Kk4JfzxiJD2qpjALBV6FR6BA
Play some games https://www.lightbulblanguages.co.uk/resources-sp-pz.htm
Places to visit
Going to visit Spain or a Spanish speaking country is obviously the best way to practise the language. If you are lucky enough to visit Spain, you will find the local people really eager to help you speak Spanish and improve your pronunciation. Take lots of pictures of the vocabulary you see - shop names, menus etc which can then be shared and explored back in school.
There are still ways to practise your Spanish speaking skills, even in the UK:
- You could visit a local Spanish Restaurant and order your food in Spanish - there are lots in Leeds and even one in Morley https://leeds-list.com/food-and-drink/15-drool-inducing-tapas-restaurants-in-leeds/
- Have a Spanish themed meal night. Here is a link to CBeebies World Food recipe for Spanish Empanadas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kDE5VqvvK4 or try this very simple pan con tomate y aciete recipe from BBC Bitesize https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zv4d7sg/articles/z6knf4j
Further support and useful weblinks
Early Years Development Matters
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum
Spanish stories to enjoy:
BBC Learning
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zxsvr82
Duolingo https://www.duolingo.com - Learn languages for free. Web or app.