“Re-energising Spanish Excellence” The Federated Schools of St. Cuthbert’s and St. Sebastian’s Catholic Primary Schools were designated ‘Centres of Excellence’ for Spanish teaching by Liverpool Authority in 2002. Due to changes in staffing and changed expectations for Primary Language Teaching for NC 2104, the schools felt that it was time to re-invest in high quality training to refresh Spanish teaching and learning. The main objectives were to: Equip teachers with the linguistic skills and confidence to deliver high quality teaching and learning experiences in Primary Languages; Raise the profile of Spanish in the school and local community and improve intercultural understanding; Meet the needs of the new National Curriculum 2014; Increase self-confidence of lower attainers and EAL pupils across the curriculum; Raise pupil attainment in languages and across all subjects; Re-energise our ‘Centre of Excellence’ status for Spanish, in order to act as a support for other schools, both locally and nationally. The project was designed to last 2 years, focusing initially on 5 key staff, and then engaging the majority of teaching staff (30 teachers across the Federation) for maximum impact on standards. Many of teachers enjoy language learning and are keen to trial new initiatives in our quest aspiring to be ‘outstanding’. However, a staff skills audit has shown that most staff hold qualifications in French or other languages, and show less confidence using Spanish. In the past we have been able to offer training ourselves for other schools wishing to develop their language teaching, and as a federation, we needed to refresh our skills, methodology and resources to ensure that we were up-to-date and modelling ‘outstanding teaching and learning’. The expectations of NC14 Languages state an increased focus on the development of Reading and Writing, so our project focussed on effective ways of developing these skills with pupils, while maintaining the fun elements of language teaching and learning. Links with partner schools provided opportunity for pupils to have purposeful communication, and use of e-twinning websites and electronic media allowed teachers to develop and share authentic resources to enhance Literacy skills. By visiting partner schools, Teachers were able to strengthen our links and be able to have professional dialogue about effective teaching methods and use of authentic resources. Staff also undertook intensive language training on a residential course in Santander, from which they returned with improved linguistic competence and confidence in delivering their own Spanish lessons. This supported us in embedding Spanish throughout the curriculum, so that pupils are using the language naturally as a tool for communication. We have used the experience to develop our CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) after being given the opportunity to observe this in practice during the residential courses in Cantabria. Due to the commitment of the whole staff in this project, we expected the impact to be extensive and not only evident in our Spanish language teaching, but on the school as a whole, and this has certainly been the case. Standards of teaching and learning in languages ha been elevated, which has impacted on pupils’ motivation and enthusiasm. This may affect their uptake of languages in further education. As small schools in areas of high deprivation, many of our pupils do not have great opportunities to develop their intercultural understanding, and the project has impacted on pupils and parents’ attitudes. Furthermore, teachers and support staff feel better equipped to meet the needs of National Curriculum 2014, i.e. Language teaching with an increased focus on reading and writing in the target language. We are hoping that standards in other areas will improve e.g. Literacy due to pupils’ phonological awareness and grammatical understanding being developed in language lessons. Moreover, we have found that language learning significantly increases the self-esteem of lower attaining pupils and those for whom English is an Additional Language, which in turn raises standards in the Core Curriculum areas of Maths and English.