Spanish

Spanish is a widely spoken language with over 440 million speakers in the world and the ability to communicate in this language is a growing advantage to all. It is becoming of greater importance in Europe and a popular second option in primary and secondary schools in the UK.

Curriculum
Spanish is introduced in Year 1 and pupils have one lesson per week up to Year 4.

The lessons are dynamic and fun and the aim is to make the language accessible to all through games and songs. There is some reading and writing activities to reinforce the vocabulary in Year 3 and Year 4.
In Year 4 students are completing the European Language Portfolio, developed by the Council of Europe and CiLT, to record their progress and reflect on their learning experience.

In Senior School students have two lessons per week. The book used is Listos 1 which follows the most up to date National Curriculum guidelines. It encourages a communicative approach but follows a clear grammatical progression.

Use of ICT
The language room is equipped with an Interactive Smartboard. We have EDpaX Primary Spanish, a software package which follows the QCA Scheme of Work for Languages. This offers pupils the opportunity to complete a wide range of tasks.

We also use computers to access relevant websites:

www.languagesonline.org.uk/	For vocabulary and grammar
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryspanish/	For vocabulary
www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/	For vocabulary and grammar
www.alienlanguage.co.uk/	For vocabulary
www.linguascope.com/	For vocabulary and grammar
www.conjugation.org/	For verbs
www.mepsyd.es/exterior/uk/es/consej/es/publicaciones/primaria.shtml	Resources
www.oye.languageskills.co.uk/beginner/year7.html	For vocabulary and grammar
www.library.thinkquest.org/J0111321/	For vocabulary
www.pekegifs.com/	For games

Cultural experience

As well as classroom teaching, we tend to involve pupils in all sorts of activities: European Day of Languages (26^th September), Hispanic Day (12^th October) with a Spanish menu, Christmas in Spain Assembly, Spanish cooking, visits to a Spanish ballet show, Spanish breakfast or Sevillanas Dancing Club are some of these.

We currently have one partner school abroad. We run an email exchange with Delicias School in Madrid for Year 7 and Year 8. Students have the opportunity to communicate in Spanish with native speakers and to consider the experiences and perspectives of people of the same age in a different country.

We are also planning a cultural visit to Spain for 2008-2009.