Key Stage 3:  Spanish

Curriculum Intent

Spanish teaching at Murray Park School aims to prepare students for the globalised world in which we live. Learning Spanish provides an opening into other cultures and a liberation from insularity. We hope to foster students’ curiosity and deepen their understanding of the world through high-quality teaching. We wish to enable students to be able to express their ideas and thoughts in Spanish and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and in writing. It is hoped that our students will leave school with broadened horizons and opportunities that may not have been available to previous generations of their family.

Our Spanish curriculum will give students an insight into what it is like to live in a Spanish-speaking (Hispanophone) country and allow them to compare their lives with the lives of their Hispanophone peers. We aim to incorporate authentic literary texts and authentic sound and video clips into our curriculum in order to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understanding of Spanish language and Hispanophone culture.

We believe that all students can benefit from learning a language and that all students should have the opportunity to learn a language as part of their broad and balanced education at Murray Park. We hope that the study of languages can lead students to recognise that diversity is a matter for respect and celebration in a world of multiple cultures and languages.

Aims:

The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all students:

  • understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources;
  • 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;
  • can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt;
  • discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Curriculum Overview

Course outline and structure

Each Year group covers a new unit of work each half term and the students’ learning is regularly assessed.

In key stage 3 students are taught to:

Grammar and vocabulary

  • identify and use tenses or other structures which convey the present, past, and future as appropriate to the language being studied;
  • use and manipulate a variety of key grammatical structures and patterns, including voices and moods, as appropriate;
  • develop and use a wide-ranging and deepening vocabulary that goes beyond their immediate needs and interests, allowing them to give and justify opinions and take part in discussion about wider issues;
  • use accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Linguistic competence

  • listen to a variety of forms of spoken language to obtain information and respond appropriately;
  • transcribe words and short sentences that they hear with increasing accuracy
  • initiate and develop conversations, coping with unfamiliar language and unexpected responses, making use of important social conventions such as formal modes of address;
  • express and develop ideas clearly and with increasing accuracy, both orally and in writing;
  • speak coherently and confidently, with increasingly accurate pronunciation and intonation;
  • read and show comprehension of original and adapted materials from a range of different sources, understanding the purpose, important ideas and details, and provide an accurate English translation of short, suitable materials;
  • read literary texts in the language [such as stories, songs, poems and letters], to stimulate ideas, develop creative expression and expand understanding of the language and culture;
  • write prose using an increasingly wide range of grammar and vocabulary;
  • write creatively to express their own ideas and opinions;
  • translate short written text accurately into the foreign language.

An outline of what students will study during their time at Murray Park School throughout key stage 3 is set out in the table below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excitingly, we are currently in the process of introducing Spanish to the school. Pupils can choose between studying French and Spanish in Y7 and then continue with this language until GCSE.

Homework in MFL takes into account that success in the subject is largely based on the retention of vocabulary and grammatical structures and knowledge of phonics. Pupils are set vocabulary homework every two weeks and are tested on this vocabulary within lessons. As the word lists directly relate to vocabulary covered in class, this takes the form of flip learning. Pupils are required to review their learning on a regular basis and their knowledge of key vocabulary, grammar and phonics is assessed throughout the year.

Extra-curricular activities

We aim to convince pupils that language learning should stretch beyond the timetabled lessons. We offer the following opportunities for enrichment in languages:

  • A range of international trips to Europe (including Paris / Disneyland) and a planned trip to Spain in 2023/2024
  • Trip to German Christmas markets in Birmingham
  • Language taster sessions for European Day of Languages
  • Film screenings of foreign language film to complement study in lessons on cinema
  • Outside visitors, including students extolling the virtues of language study at university and living abroad