Spanish

Curriculum Intent

At Havant Academy we believe in the power of languages

At Havant Academy we passionately believe in the idea, as made clear in the very first sentence of the National Curriculum, that language learning is a liberation from insularity and provides an opening to other cultures. Our vision for the Spanish Curriculum here at Havant Academy is to instill a love of languages among our students, a deeper understanding of the many countries and communities that make up the Spanish-speaking world, and a greater knowledge and appreciation of other cultures and places. We hope to broaden their horizons with the possibility of travelling, studying and working in a variety of careers all over the globe.  

Our curriculum aims to challenge students to become confident linguists, able both to understand and communicate well across the four key language-learning skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Beyond these, learning a language also helps pupils to expand their problem solving and critical thinking skills, as well as improve their memory and communication. Many of our in-class activities, for example, focus on testing our students’ recall and actively supporting our learners to remember the new Spanish words and phrases that we have learnt in class to build up their knowledge and help them to remember more. Wherever possible, we accomplish this through interactive and engaging pairwork and small group tasks. 

At KS3, we start by introducing the key building blocks of vocabulary and grammar - the words, phrases, grammatical structures and tenses - that will help pupils to understand a foreign language. Students are shown how Spanish and English have different rules as languages, and they are taught how to identify these differences to improve their own understanding and the accuracy of their work. At KS4, learners draw on this knowledge to support them with the more in depth learning of the GCSE course, revisiting many of the same topic areas in much greater detail. Together, this helps our students be successful in their language learning journey: whether that is in their one-on-one speaking exam, conducted entirely in Spanish, or in dealing with extracts from Spanish literature in their reading exam.

Our intention is that all students here at Havant Academy will have a positive, meaningful, and beneficial experience of learning a foreign language. As part of this intention, we offer learners opportunities to broaden their cultural capital with options for Spanish food-tasting, music and trips to fully immerse them in the culture of the language, as well as providing extra-curricular clubs to support learners to become confident and proficient Spanish speakers.