Learning for life, striving for excellence!

Confidence             Courtesy             Responsibility            Adventure

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:

• develop their interest in the language(s) and culture(s) of other countries.
• develop their practical communication skills by understanding and responding to both spoken and written language. 
• make substantial progress in one language 
• understand basic grammar appropriate to the language studied. 
• have a solid foundation for further language study at KS3, where possible in the same language that will be studied at KS3.

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:

• listen and show understanding by joining in and responding 
• link the sound, spelling and meaning of words 
• read aloud with accurate pronunciation 
• read and show understanding of phrases and simple texts 
• speak in sentences 
• describe people, places, things in speech and writing 
• ask and answer questions 
• express opinions 
• write phrases from memory 
• adapt phrases to create new sentences 
• use a dictionary

Our children also learn key cultural and country-specific knowledge. For example, by the end of KS2, our children: 

• can name and locate on a map countries where Spanish is spoken 
• know the name and some detail about at least one festival or tradition from South America 
• know at least one typical food from Spain

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