ASPIRE
At West Craven, Key Stage 3 Spanish students use the Language-Driven Pedagogy approach to learning a language, which is research-informed and in line with the new Ofsted framework.
Throughout Key Stage 3, students develop a strong foundation of phonics, vocabulary and grammar to help them develop communication skills in Spanish. All their learning is underpinned with cultural knowledge and understanding of the Spanish-speaking world using authentic resources. This knowledge is then reinforced via planned practice in meaningful activities which develop all four of the essential skills – reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Content is revisited at different opportunities throughout Key Stage 3 to ensure students have embedded the essentials so they can build on and deepen their understanding. This allows students to build the confidence for communicating on a practical level and learning further languages.
Students develop an understanding of the sound symbol correspondences in Spanish, their proficiency in highly frequent vocabulary and the most frequent forms of grammar; articles, adjectives, present tense verb forms in parts of the verb, question words and forming questions. Students will learn to describe people, places and locations, say what you and other people do, don't do and must do, talk about your family and begin to talk about future events.
Students continue to embed their understanding of the phonetical patterns of the language through syllables and stress, past tenses are introduced, and pupils work on developing an understanding of the future and past time frames. Students will learn how to describe events in the past and present and say how people feel. Students will learn how to talk about daily life and routines, express opinions about school, talk about people's intentions and compare present and future plans.
Students embed their understanding of the three key time frames, their understanding of adjectival agreement, word order, articles, quantifiers and expressing and explaining points of view. They study a range of topics including young people in the wider world, the world of work and the importance of languages and healthy living and lifestyle choices. Students will learn how to talk about hobbies and interests, the world of work, healthy living, and rights and responsibilities in Spanish.