Languages
Languages- Latin
Intent
At St Gabriel’s, we aim to inspire our children to appreciate the joy and challenge of learning a different language. Latin is taught at St Gabriel’s as about two thirds of English words are derived from Latin. Studying Latin provides invaluable insights into English vocabulary and the structure and meaning of English words, especially more complicated words. Latin provides a key to learning the Romance languages: Spanish, French, Italian & Portuguese. as well as being the universal language of western civilization. We believe learning Latin supports children with their understanding of the connectedness of language across time and space.
Implementation
Languages is taught weekly for thirty minutes as a discrete lesson. Our curriculum has been designed to progressively develop skills in Latin and meets the requirements of the National Curriculum. The school uses the Maximus Classics scheme of learning to ensure development is progressive as children build on previous knowledge from units already studied. Lessons are predominantly centred around speaking and listening activities as well as some reading of words, phrases and simple sentences. On occasions, children will write in Latin.
The units provide the context for learning. Units include a mixture of relevant contexts for children and also enhances their cultural understanding of classical literature and contexts such as Olympics or Roman history. Each unit contains child friendly presentations and engages children through visual prompts, songs and games. Sound buttons are also included within presentations to support children with the accurate pronunciation.
Impact
Assessment for learning strategies are employed to enable teachers to identify the strength of understanding of the children. Teachers will use this information to make adaptations to their planning to meet the needs of the children. Teachers may also change the focus of learning during a lesson to ensure children are supported and challenged. During each unit, teachers will collect evidence of children’s learning. Video/audio recordings are made as well as gathering some written responses to learning. Teachers keep these to support them to assess children each term School leaders monitor this evidence and hold individual termly meetings with all teachers to ensure they are supported to provide a high-quality curriculum. In addition, children’s views and understanding are ascertained through pupil interviews/surveys.
Skills Progression