At The Hundred of Hoo Academy, we want every child to be happy and enthusiastic learners of foreign languages, and to be eager to achieve their very best in order to fulfil their enormous potential. We firmly believe that the recipe for success is high quality first-wave teaching in foreign languages, which is central to the life of our happy, caring academy.
- Pupils at Hoo learn Spanish through the 3 pillars of progression – phonics, grammar and vocabulary.
- Our teaching of phonics provides pupils with the knowledge to enable them to listen, speak, read and write with growing confidence and reinforces their literacy skills acquired in English.
- As pupils progress through KS2, they begin to learn how to manipulate grammar to allow them to personalise information.
- Core phrases and key vocabulary are recycled in a range of situations and scenarios to give pupils the knowledge and resilience that they need to become confident communicators.
- Our curriculum draws on the principles of the PYP programme providing a seamless transition for those pupils who go onto study the MYP programme in our secondary phase. Our teaching prompts pupils to think more about the culture of the language they are learning and gives them opportunities to make connections between what they are learning and the real world. Pupils are risk takers when they apply their phonics knowledge to unfamiliar words, communicators when they practise their productive skills and adapt sentences using grammar, and they are knowledgeable thinkers when they learn, recall and use vocabulary.
- The national curriculum has been used as guidance in the creation of our KS2 schemes of work, and extensive use has been made of the SoW created for the Cam Schools Trust which draws heavily on the NCELP KS3 SoW and as a result, our curriculum content is more than ambitious. Our use of sentence builders reflects current language learning research and supports pupils to use increasingly complex language in their work, building in phrases and structures to support fluency.
- The curriculum has been designed as a 6 year spiral, starting in Y1, with pupils revisiting topics or elements of topics throughout the course, as content becomes increasingly complex. The sequence of topics ensures that pupils have a mastery of the vocabulary and the grammar they are learning, and can apply this knowledge to different scenarios and topics.
- Teachers enthuse pupils with a curiosity about, and love of languages and promote the importance and benefits of studying them.
- Our language teaching consistently supports whole school literacy through sentence structure, use of tenses and correct time phrases, articles, pronouns, as well as simple SPaG definitions.
- Pupils are also supported with numeracy through our teaching of the time and using higher order numbers.
- By the end of KS2 pupils: understand and apply their knowledge of phonics to their listening, reading, speaking and writing; have a clear understanding of key grammar concepts such as gender and number and are able to confidently deploy a range of vocabulary to communicate confidently thereby transitioning with confidence and a keenness to learn at KS3.
- Our curriculum is delivered by specialist teachers from the secondary phase ensuring that pupils are supported and challenged to perform well.
- Implementation is shared with class teachers and teaching assistants all of who, along with the specialists, are passionate about delivering our intent. Class teachers are responsible for ensuring that language learning continues outside the allocated specialist provision.
- We deploy a range of tried and tested MFL teaching strategies including from Gianfranco Conti’s Extensive Processing Instruction (EPI) method to help pupils learn.
- Regular enquiry walks (EW) are undertaken by SLT and Trust Curriculum Advisors to inform the Subject Lead of strengths and areas for further development.
- CPD time is allocated to provide class teachers with strategies to support language learning outside the specialist lessons.
- Lessons are planned by the Subject Lead to follow the scheme of work devised by the specialist teacher. The scheme of work and all lessons are available to all staff , specialist and class teachers, and are adapted to suit the groups they are teaching, ensuring that pupils are appropriately challenged, and supported with scaffolding.
- Phonics, grammar and vocabulary are repeated and reused throughout and across topics, and opportunities for recall/retrieval tasks are planned to support pupils in committing this knowledge to their long term memory.
- Live marking is used effectively when pupils are completing writing or speaking tasks; enabling pupils to have immediate feedback, and for staff to pick up and address misconceptions as they happen. Staff are skilled at identifying and plugging gaps where needed. Additionally effective use of modelling writing and speaking responses supports confidence in productive skills, with sentence builders used to help pupils build accurate sentences in speaking and writing.
- Progress is measured within lessons, and over terms, years, and key stages. In lessons, progress is measured through retrieval practice and regular formative assessments such as effective questioning and the deployment of mini whiteboards or a virtual equivalent to identify areas of strength and weakness in pupils’ responses. Gaps or misconceptions in knowledge are then identified and addressed swiftly.
- The interleaving and spacing of phonics, grammar and vocabulary across topics, terms, years and key stages provides opportunities for recall and retrieval and facilitates the transfer of knowledge.
- Half-yearly data, enquiry walks and book looks are all used to assess the impact of the department’s intent and implementation. The SLT and the MFL Curriculum Advisor for the Trust take part in regular enquiry walks to monitor the implementation and impact of the curriculum.
- Engagement in MFL is evident in pupils’ enthusiasm for language learning and the way that they identify and share their learning in real life experiences.