Intent
Our approach to the Modern Foreign Language Curriculum is taught discretely to ensure depth and rigour, whilst being underpinned by the accelerated learning approach to teaching and learning. We teach Spanish as our MFL by utilising the key concepts, principles and themes developed from the National Curriculum to create a range of progressive knowledge and skills through which the children are helped to grow and develop to succeed in 21st century Britain. This progressive curriculum allows a purposeful way of teaching and learning, enabling us to provide a more meaningful and sequential approach to the schema for Spanish.
The MFL curriculum we offer is designed to meet the needs of all our pupils by providing purposeful contexts which engage our children. It is rich, varied, imaginative and ambitious and meets the needs of individual learners but can easily be adapted for pupils with additional needs. Through regular assessment, tasks are matched to the needs of all learners and they provide a level of challenge that is stimulating for pupils.
Key Concepts within our MFL curriculum include:
At HCPS, the planning of our MFL topics for each half term are thoughtfully considered to be based around other curriculum areas. This ensures that the content of each MFL session is purposeful, meaningful and has a relevant context for our children to engage with.
Implementation
Modern Foreign Languages is taught discretely and it is delivered to raise interest, self-esteem, creativity and aspirations of all our children. The curriculum is rich and varied, which provides our pupils with the skills required for life in the 21st Century. The Accelerated Learning Cycle, based on the work of Alastair Smith, is applied in all lessons. It stems from the idea of a supportive and challenging learning environment. The cycle has active engagement through multi-sensory learning, encourages the demonstrating understanding of learning in a variety of ways and the consolidation of knowing. Ultimately, providing opportunities for children to personally develop by immersing themselves in another language and culture is at the heart of the MFL curriculum offer that we provide to the children through exploring a wide range of topics, in order to prepare them for life.
Impact
Formative assessment is ongoing throughout each lesson. It judges progress and enables teachers to make flexible adaptions to their planned teaching. Through this regular ongoing assessment, tasks are matched to the ability of each child through scaffolds, adult support and providing a level of challenge that is stimulating for pupils and questioning skills. Alongside formative assessment, Insights is used as a summative assessment to assess foundation subjects. Alongside the analysis of data from insights, the curriculum document for art is regularly highlighted to identify any gaps or misconceptions to be addressed. This allows children to acquire complex skills that depends on the fundamentals of their prior knowledge in a well-designed curriculum sequence.
Adaptations
At HCPS our curriculum is ambitious for all pupils, including those children with SEND. Curriculum designers and teachers have high expectations of what SEND pupils can achieve and the curriculum is not diluted or unnecessarily reduced for SEND pupils. Every pupil is different and so what works for each pupil varies. Pupil’s individual needs are considered and adaptations are planned to ensure the success of pupils in all subjects. The way that our curriculum is designed ensures that chunks of learning are sequenced in a coherent way to enable all pupils, including those with SEND, to build on prior knowledge. Too much information at once can be a barrier to learning which is one of the reason why we have chosen half termly curriculum drivers. Where pupils are identified with having complex needs it may be appropriate to provide a personalised curriculum which will be based on individual needs and will retain ambition for the pupil. Where working memory is an issue for pupils, including those with SEND, we look to reduce extraneous load as much as possible as well as identifying key information when teaching. This helps pupils to pay attention to the content which they are expected to learn. Adaptations to support individual pupils will be recorded on personal school support plans.
At HCPS we do not assume that pupils with SEND learn content better through practical work as this can cause distraction and cognitive overload rather than increase clarity or accessibility. The curriculum is not narrowed for any pupils. Knowledge is taught and then pupils are provided with opportunities for scientific enquiry to test and investigate the knowledge taught. Pupils specific needs determine the types of adaptations which are required. These adaptations are in how the subject is taught rather than the content pupils are expected to learn. Where appropriate, learning will be chunked into smaller steps and pre learning and consolidation time in planned in to support need. Time is also planned to ensure pupils with SEND are pre taught vocabulary to support their understanding. Adaptations may include supporting pupils to pay attention to key aspects as well as reducing excessive or unhelpful demands on working memory.
