Languages at St Bede’s…

‘The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.’ – Roger Bacon 

At St Bede’s we know that learning a language provides an opening to other cultures. A high-quality language education fosters pupils’ curiosity and deepens their understanding of the world. Our curriculum provides opportunities for our pupils to communicate, learn new ways of thinking and read literature in the original language. Language teaching provides the foundation for learning further languages, equipping pupils to study and work in other countries.

The National Curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources  speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation 
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt  
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Throughout our languages curriculum we ensure children are exposed to vocabulary, phonics, oracy, reading and writing as well as supporting children to understand the culture from which the language has come from.  Lessons focus on retrieval of knowledge as well as developing language skills. They help our children to build their confidence in speaking aloud and engaging in conversations with their peers.