Italian
At St. Joseph's, we offer a high quality Modern Foreign Language education, led by an Italian specialist. As a multicultural school, we believe that the acquisition of a language can aid the development of communication and literacy skills, which lay the foundation for future language learning, as well as extending knowledge of how language works and discovering more about our own vocabulary in English. Learning another language raises awareness of the multilingual and multicultural world in which we live and introduces an international dimension to children’s learning, giving them an insight into their own culture and those of others.
Italian Curriculum Rationale
We believe there is a specific advantage to learning Italian because it has its roots in Latin. Because about 60% of the English language is Latin-based, outside of studying Latin itself, Italian can be a major advantage to our children in understanding the root of the words we use in our daily lives.
We believe that these lessons will be beneficial to our students in the near future, which is shown by the UK government's foreign language as a GCSE target being 90%. A large number of our school community have English as an additional language and some children able to speak multiple languages. We believe that the best language teaching is done with passion and commitment to the subject and we are extremely proud to have an exciting relationship with the Italian Consulate who provide us with our Italian teacher Signora Stella Nocera.