Spanish Curriculum

Languages and International Learning at Rise Park Primary and Nursery School 

 “The decision to learn a foreign language is to me an act of friendship. It is indeed a holding out of the hand. It’s not just a route to negotiation. It’s also to get to know you better, to draw closer to you and your culture, your social manners and your way of thinking.”  John Le Carre   

INTENT 

Language learning at Rise Park is rooted in a passion for sharing Spanish language and culture with a clear and sequential scheme of progression to foster our children’s listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. Language lessons provide children with opportunities to express ideas and thoughts in Spanish – both verbally and in writing; to respond to a range of authentic books, songs and poetry from the Hispanic countries linked to each year group through their class countries; and to make intercultural and cross-curricular links. Our Spanish curriculum aims to provide a firm foundation for further language learning, equipping children with knowledge of the 3 pillars of languages – phonics, vocabulary and grammar – and the skills they need in order to become competent and confident linguists, which results in the aspiration to be global citizens with a ‘give it a go’ attitude. 

Through the high-quality teaching of languages at Rise Park, we aim to: 

• Provide all children with an opportunity to experience Spanish language and culture and widen their knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world. 

• Teach phonics, vocabulary and linguistic structures as informed by the National Curriculum and foster children’s development of the 4 key modalities: reading, listening, speaking and writing. 

• Use key questions as the basis for our topic work, which enable all children to talk about topics pertinent to themselves and their lives and which would allow them to converse with a Spanish speaker with confidence. 

• Create opportunities for children of all abilities to manipulate language based on their topic work and experiences in Spanish lessons and draw on their knowledge of other subject areas to support understanding and application of more complex grammatical structures. 

• Enable children of all abilities to build their comprehension and application skills in Spanish vocabulary and grammar, through the use of cognates, near-cognates, false-friends and Rainbow Grammar. 

• Encourage a classroom culture for learning where mistakes are proof that we are learning and a way for children to develop their linguistic resilience. 

• Establish children’s knowledge of Spanish as a global language and understanding of cultural elements linked to Hispanic countries in Spanish. 

• Create competent, confident and resilient linguists, who care about their role as global citizens. 

We aspire to build these characteristics in our language learners: 

• Curiosity about Spanish 

• Enthusiasm for language learning   

• Awareness of sound/spelling links   

• Confidence, risk taking not worrying about making mistakes   

• Recognising links in the new language to something familiar   

• Willingness to experiment with writing   

• Noticing patterns and differences   

• Familiarity with new sounds   

• Wanting to create more interesting sentences   

• Starting to use investigative skills when encountering new language  

• Adapting and manipulating language to suit their own purposes 

• Noticing patterns and understanding that they sometimes have exceptions   

• Taking their learning beyond the classroom door.  

Spanish Curriculum

Spanish Skills Progression Listening

Spanish Skills Progression Reading

Spanish Skills Progression Speaking

Spanish Skills Progression Writing

IMPLEMENTATION 

Spanish is taught by Mrs. Husbands, a Specialist Languages Teacher who is also responsible for the Modern Languages subject area and contributes to the international ethos of our school. Mrs. Husbands holds a PGCE in MFL, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Hispanic Studies and is a Specialist Leader of Education in Primary Languages, contributing to the continuing professional development and training of Modern Languages leaders and teachers across the city.  

In Nursery, Reception and KS1, children are exposed to Spanish through a bank of agreed upon resources and through pupil-led small groups delivered by the Spanish Ambassadors during milk and fruit on different days of the week, according to a rota system. Class teachers aim to introduce key Spanish vocabulary such as greetings through classroom routines. 

In KS2, each class receives an hour long lesson a week, taught by the Specialist Languages Teacher during class teacher’s PPA.  

The current programme of study has been developed by the Specialist Language Teacher, ensuring coverage of listening, reading, speaking and writing and building in opportunities for children to revisit knowledge at varying degrees of complexity at a variety of points throughout the four years of study in KS2. Lessons are intended to be progressive and challenging and children work as a whole class, in small groups, in mixed ability pairs or independently to complete work at an appropriate level of challenge, which is sometimes self-determined and sometimes specified by the teacher (green, red, purple). Work is adapted further for children with SEND; through use of pre-recorded videos and Widgit cards or activities which can be supported by a TA, where appropriate and for children who show a predisposition to be gifted or talented in Spanish, such as through taking on the role of class translator. Activities consist of: phonics, games, stories, songs, grammar, sentence-building activities, writing for purpose and audience, translation, interviews and dictionary work. DIRT tasks are completed as necessary, to respond to misconceptions and reinforce learning throughout topics. 

Languages has a vibrant role in the wider life of the school. Theme weeks and European Day of Languages are regularly celebrated and offer children an opportunity to reflect on learning about language and culture within a wider context than academic life. The school has also developed a significant partnership with The University of Nottingham where students promote language learning through language taster sessions and the Wider Participation Languages project, where Languages undergraduates have taught a sequence of lessons in a different world language (not Spanish) to a targeted group of children to help raise aspirations of language learning beyond our school. As a result of this project, children have then showcased their learning at the University of Nottingham and shared their learning back in school.  

IMPACT 

 Formative and summative assessment are used during Spanish lessons to ensure children’s progress over time and respond to children’s learning needs (including identifying gaps in learning and to inform future planning). Data is gathered for Year 6 according to APP tasks with the help of tracking documentation linked to the Rise Park skills progression. This enables us to demonstrate attainment at the end of KS2. Additionally, we have a portfolio of work that shows the differentiated, progressive outcomes linked to a range of skills. 

Arguably, the most important desired outcome of Languages teaching for us is that our children leave our school with a passion for learning languages and a heightened intercultural awareness that helps them to identify their own place in the world and relate to others as global citizens. We want our children to be able to see how their language skills are transferable to real life contexts – be that in conversing with others, through travelling or in the enjoyment of Hispanic culture, such as literature and music – and with that, have the keys to open the door to the world beyond Rise Park. 

Spanish and Adaptive Learning

Challenge and support form a key part of our Spanish offering in order to build all pupils’ competency and confidence at a level appropriate to their learning. As such, all activities are adapted to different levels, increasing incrementally in difficulty (green, red, purple) which can be pupil self-differentiated or teacher determined, depending on the task.  

Additionally, children who are working significantly below age-related expectations are given extra support through the use of word banks and/or support on worksheets created through using ‘Widgit’.  

Children with SEND have access to ‘Widgit’ cards and pre-recorded videos recorded by the Spanish Specialist Teacher, which they can work through either independently or with a Teaching Assistant and supported accordingly. These children will then complete further tasks such as games related to new vocabulary introduced in the videos to encourage vocabulary retention, practical activities to develop other skills linked to language being learned (such as fine motor skills) or sentence building using manipulatives, such as Lego, to develop grammatical knowledge. 

Children who have demonstrated a higher level of proficiency for Spanish are identified by the Specialist Teacher as ‘gifted and talented’ and are targeted with focussed activities by the teacher to ensure they are appropriately challenged. In writing, for example, this might be through introduction to a more complex writing structure, such as a simile or in speaking, through phrases which are more native sounding to the Spanish-speaking ear. 

Enrichment

The Spanish curriculum at Rise Park is further enriched by a variety of different opportunities for our pupils during their time with us.  

Spanish Ambassadors 

Our Spanish Ambassadors play a pivotal role in extending Spanish language learning and use beyond curriculum time. At Rise Park, we believe in the value of developing pupil leadership and as such, our Spanish Ambassadors have a key part to play in Theme Weeks, whole-school events and teaching younger children outside of KS2. They design and undertake regular Spanish challenges to encourage the use of Spanish in their day-to-day classroom lives among their teachers and peers and champion whole-school celebrations such as European Day of Languages.  

Extra-curricular 

We offer various clubs and learning opportunities throughout the academic year to develop curiosity about culture and language.  

As part of our in-school transition, Year 2 can opt to participate in Hispaniparty; a club which starts to introduce commonly used Spanish vocabulary through traditional Hispanic playground and party games. Children have enjoyed traditional games such as Mar y tierra, El repollo and 1,2,3 Momia Es as well as unusual takes on traditional British games such as pass the sombrero instead of pass the parcel! 

Lower KS2 have the opportunity to participate in Hispanicraft – a club which fuses a love of crafting with an opportunity to learn more deeply about the culture of different Spanish-speaking countries. From making our own sugar skull heads linked to the Day of the Dead or creating our Peruvian Nazca line pictures from sand, our children learn more about the Spanish speaking world – and create something from scratch! 

University of Nottingham 

Rise Park has a strong partnership with the University of Nottingham and during the past two years we have hosted student languages ambassadors as part of their Widening Participation programme. This has given different groups of targeted children an opportunity to learn a new language through one-hour sessions during the Spring term; in 2024, this was Mandarin Chinese and in 2025, German.  

Celebrating Community Languages

We recognise and celebrate the different identities and cultures that make up our school community here at Rise Park and we love it when children (and staff!) share the languages they speak at home here with us! 

When you enter and leave our school, you will see posters designed by our children greeting you in the languages spoken here and the languages we speak within our community are celebrated and shared often, as part of European Day of Languages and theme weeks, such as our Community Theme Weeks throughout 2024-25. 

Languages and professional development 

Inspiring high standards is important to us as leaders of languages here at Rise Park and as such, in 2018, we were invited to lead the Nottingham Schools Trust Modern Languages network. In our work in this role, we have led and facilitated network meetings termly within the NST community since then and covered areas from adaptive learning to assessment frameworks to transition, supporting leaders and teachers of languages within Nottingham. 

We have also been invited to facilitate training for both Transform and Flying High as part of their curriculum focus days for trainee teachers as part of their ITT courses. 

Additionally, we have built – and maintain – a strong partnership with the University of Nottingham, which provides learning opportunities for both our pupils and trainee teachers. Our Spanish Specialist Teacher is a guest speaker on the University of Nottingham Secondary Modern Languages PGCE annually for Phonics and has participated in the Curriculum Learning in Languages (CLIL) project, pioneered by Dr. Ruth Koro, resulting in a presentation on Authentic voice in the languages classroom: using books, stories and poetry to enhance topic learning at a UoN conference in March 2023. Finally, we are a founding member of the Alternative Professional Experience programme offering primary placements to UoN secondary Modern Languages students so they can gain experience in Primary Languages prior to undertaking teaching posts in secondary schools.