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St. Francis de Sales Catholic Junior School

Non Excidet

Understanding

Termly writing assessments enable children to develop their Spanish writing skills and showcase their understanding of each topic.

Naming Forms of Transport

 

Once pupils learnt how to say, read and write forms of transport in Spanish, they had many opportunities to showcase their understandings through both oracy and written tasks. 

 

"I enjoyed learning about forms of transport because I found it easy to understand the names of certain kinds by making links to English e.g. 'helicopter' in Spanish is 'helicóptero' which is pretty similar; therefore, I am more likely to remember how to say it in the future. However, some forms of transport do not sound like their English names very much e.g. 'boat' is 'barco'. Thanks to my Spanish teacher, I have easy ways to recall harder ones like this due to the actions, chants and songs that have stuck in my head." Sean B

Naming Items of Clothing

 

After learning how to say, read and write items of clothing in Spanish, pupils had to show their understanding by matching pictures of clothing to how they should be written in Spanish and identifying true or false answers. 

 

"When we learnt how to say items of clothing in Spanish, we had to decide whether to use 'un' or 'una' before the noun. Señorita helped us to remember which one to choose by teaching us that if the noun ends in a letter 'o', we need to use 'un' and if the noun ends in 'a', we must use 'una'. To help us with this, our teacher used a certain tone of voice for feminine clothing items and a different kind for the masculine ones. I feel like I can hear her voice in my head when I go to name an item of clothing out loud myself." Michael Mc

Using Spanish in PE 

 

Opportunities are seized during PE lessons to apply Spanish skills. For example, some images below show Year 5 races. When pupils heard the Spanish words for either run, skip, jump or hop, the command in question had to be carried out. Next, pupils were challenged to start the race if they heard a Spanish word called out that linked to transport. If it was a word linked to clothing, pupils had to remain still! Also, whenever things need counting out (e.g. cones), pupils are encouraged to do this in Spanish and to use Spanish terms for the colours of the equipment. 

Using Spanish in Maths

 

Pupils are often encouraged to apply their Spanish skills to mathematical situations. Whether it involves describing the colours of 3D shapes, naming the sizes of angles or simply chanting if an answer is true or false, there are countless opportunities for our pupils to use their Spanish knowledge in context!

Using Spanish in Conversation

 

At the start of the school year, pupils were challenged to get to know each other by taking photographs of each other and sharing facts about themselves to the person they photographed. Part of the challenge was to see how much Spanish they could involve e.g. to reveal their name, say their age or which class number they are now in/used to be in etc. Regularly throughout the rest of Year 5, pupils are encouraged to have a Spanish 'catch up' with each other, describing themselves in Spanish as much as they can.