SPANISH STATEMENT

Vision

Our vision is to develop students’ linguistic abilities, by helping them believe in their capacity to learn and strive for excellence in their learning. We offer an enriched curriculum in which we are able to support students to achieve the skills we practise in lessons. Namely – to be able to read, write, speak and translate in Spanish.

We are a department which provides support and culturally enriching learning opportunities, with cross-curricular links.

What do students learn in Spanish?

We provide students with an interesting curriculum that has opportunities to watch theatre productions, travel on day trips or to go on residential trips abroad. We have a weekly Ciné Club, in which we study films and discuss ideas, and we have revision GCSE master classes after school. As part of the lesson, we also have opportunities to practise speaking Spanish with our Spanish assistants.

The Academy’s core values of Believe, Strive, Achieve underpin our vision in the department where we hope to equip the next generation of linguists to go on to learn languages in the Sixth Form, and beyond at university level. As part of this vision, we encourage students to succeed in their home languages, where students have now continued with language learning at A-Level.

We are working to incorporate the new GCSE curriculum into our KS3 lessons and assessments, and this is also with a focus on bringing in activities that are encouraging students to speak in Spanish. We also encourage students to participate in international opportunities, to exchange penpal letters with other schools in Spain. This encourages links between students of different nationalities and enhances the experience of learning a second language. Due to the employment of Spanish assistants, our Academy has gained recognition for our efforts by the British Council.

We are always looking for greater opportunities to enhance international ties, and opportunities to learn languages in a more enriching way. This is reflected in our outward focus from the classroom.