Learning for life, striving for excellence!
Resourcefulness – Children are taught to be resourceful and given plenty of opportunities to put this into practice. They use learning walls, their peers and adults within the school community to support them with their learning.
Reflectiveness – Children are encouraged to reflect on their learning and be aware of their strengths and areas for development.
Research – Children have opportunities to develop their own personal dictionaries and word lists and use online translators.
Languages
At Meridian, we believe children should develop an enthusiasm for learning languages and experience the pleasure of simple communication (both spoken and written) in another language. The main language studied here is Spanish. Language learning at Meridian is based on the National Curriculum and supported by language teachers from Comberton Village College.
Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One
Our Reception and KS1 children are introduced to Spanish vocabulary through songs and games. For example, they enjoy learning the names of colours and days of the week and how to count and greet people in Spanish. A Spanish speaking volunteer kindly supports the teachers in delivering these sessions.
Key Stage Two
Meridian Primary is committed to fulfilling the aims and delivering the learning outcomes of the National Curriculum Languages programmes of study. In brief, these are to ensure that all pupils at KS2:
Essential Knowledge
We teach three core strands of essential knowledge:
1. Phonics – the key components of the sound-writing relationship
2. Vocabulary – a set of the most frequently used words
3. Grammar – the essential building blocks required to create simple sentences independently (including gender of nouns, singular and plural forms, adjectives, place and agreement, and the conjugation of key verbs).
The teaching of a foreign language to every child in KS2 is a statutory requirement, as set out in the National Curriculum Programmes of Study (NC PoS 2014). In line with the NC PoS, our children learn to:
Our children also learn key cultural and country-specific knowledge. For example, by the end of KS2, our children:
Curriculum provision:
To give our students the best foundation possible for a smooth transition to KS3 learning, we work very closely with the language leaders at Comberton Village College, who have developed a thorough, research-based scheme of learning. This is designed to embed core vocabulary, grammar and phonics knowledge so that all of our students have the essential foundational knowledge needed.
Assessment: Foreign language skills are assessed termly at Meridian