Curriculum intent
The World Languages Department is committed to giving students the opportunity to discover new cultures through foreign language acquisition. Worldly cultural knowledge builds openness, tolerance, interest and intrigue and this underpins the curriculum offered at WBCA. We want to create potential opportunities that are otherwise limited and create equity for every single person and encourage them to embrace the skills of citizens more broadly. It should also provide opportunities for students to communicate for practical purposes, learn new ways of thinking. In a globalised world characterised by international links and intercultural connections, linguistic skills are crucial for employment and career as proficiency in a foreign language enhances career opportunities.
The teaching of languages should enable pupils to express their ideas and thoughts in another language and to understand and respond to its speakers, both in speech and writing. So, each unit of work throughout the five-year course embeds the four key skills of language. The transition from primary to secondary is to establish those firm retrieval foundations and create the phonics groundworks from which students feel confident to then build on. Each year students enhance their grammar knowledge and broaden their linguistic understanding. The Key Stage 3 scheme of work offers a concise platform in order to harness a smooth transition in line with the GCSE specification.
We currently offer German and SPanish
From September 2023, we have been able to offer German or Spanish to students.
Students who are currently in Year 10 and 11 and have opted for a language are following the AQA German specification.
In Years 7, 8 and 9, groups have been taking part in units of Spanish as an introduction to the subject.
The Languages Curriculum
Curriculum
German - Year 7
In Year 7 German, students are given a firm basis for their future language learning. We encourage the students to be passionate about languages and after an initial essentials course we move on to study the areas of Family and Friends, Pets, School, and Free-Time.
German - Year 8
In Year 8 German, students are given every opportunity to build upon the many skills they acquired in Year 7. Through the topics of Home, Town, Daily Routine, Germany & Europe, and Food & Drink we continue to reinforce key structures and grammar which will provide the students with a better understanding of the requirements of a GCSE in German.
German - Year 9
In Year 9 students spend the first term studying two of the GCSE topics – TV, Film, Media, and Festivals and Traditions, before studying Holidays, Illnesses, the German School System, and Technology & Social Media. The spiral curriculum allows students to build on their KS3 topics once they start the GCSE course.
Spanish
This year, as part of our broad curriculum offer, we are delighted to be able to offer Spanish to some groups of students in Years 7-9.
The Spanish curriculum is as follows:
| Autumn Term | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Spanish | |||||
| Theme: My Life | |||||
| Content | Grammar | ||||
| Introducing yourself | Getting used to Spanish pronunciation | ||||
| Talking about your personality | Present tense: -ar/-ir verbs, 1st and 2nd singular | ||||
| Talking about age, brothers and sisters | Using adjestives that end in -o/-a | ||||
| Saying when your birthday is | Verb ser (to be) -soy, eres, es | ||||
| Talking about your pets | Using the verb tener (to have) | ||||
| Saying what you like to do | Indefinite article un/una (a/an) | ||||
| Saying what you do in your spare time | Using numbers 15 to 31 | ||||
| Months of the week | |||||
| Using the Spanish alphabet | |||||
| Making adjectives agree with nouns | |||||
| Spring Term | |
|---|---|
| Theme: Free Time | |
| Content | Grammar |
| Saying what you like to do | Using cuando (when) |
| Saying what you like to do in your spare time | Using hacer (to do) and jugar (to play) |
| Talking about the weather | Understanding more challenging texts |
| Saying what sports you do | |
| Reading about different hobbies | |
| Theme: School | |
| Content | Grammar |
| Saying what subjects you study | Using -ar verbs to say what ‘we’ do |
| Giving opinions about school subjects | Using me gusta(n) + el/la/los/las |
| Summer Term | |
|---|---|
| Theme: School (continued) | |
| Content | Grammar |
| Describing your school | Using the words for ‘a’, ‘some’ and ‘the’ |
| Theme: Family and Friends | |
| Content | Grammar |
| Describing your family | Using possessive adjectives |
| Describing your hair and eye colour | Using the verbs ser and tener |
| Saying what other people look like | Using verbs in the third person |
| Describing where you live | Using the verb estar (to be) |
years 10 and 11
In Years 10 and 11 we continue to work through the themes from the AQA GCSE course using the AQA textbooks with their interactive course ‘Kerboodle’ to enhance the students’ learning experience.
There are new GCSE specifications that are being taught for the first time from September 2024.
To find out more about the curriculum structure for a specific course, click the relevant link below.
KEY STAGE 4 COURSES
Home Languages
We are a very diverse school and we are aware that a number of our students speak and study a range of languages outside of school. In some cases, we can support students in taking an extra GCSE in a language, provided that there is an existing GCSE examination, and provided that the student is competent in speaking, reading, writing and listening.
We are also aware that some students may be taking language exams privately. For students to add these results to their overall GCSE results, the qualification must be taken in Year 10 or 11.
If you are supporting your child with a private languages GCSE, please also let us know by completing the form above, or by contacting our Examinations Officer, Mrs Raluca McQueen at exams@wbca.shirelandcat.net
