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Ask ten primary schools how they teach Spanish and you’ll get ten different answers. One school has a half-day immersion programme where children learn maths and science in Spanish. Another fits in a forty-minute lesson every Friday afternoon. A third offers an after-school club that some families pay for and others don’t. Parents are often left wondering what their child will actually be able to do by age eleven, and whether there’s anything they should be doing at home.
The answer depends mostly on how much time children spend with the language and how that time is used. The main approaches differ between the US and the UK, and families can make the most of whichever one their school offers.
The main models in American schools
US schools usually describe early language programmes in three broad types.
Exploratory programmes, sometimes called FLEX, introduce children to one or more languages and cultures for a short period each week. The aim is awareness and enthusiasm rather than proficiency. Children learn songs, greetings, numbers, and something about the countries where the language is spoken.
FLES programmes (Foreign Language in the Elementary School) teach Spanish as a regular subject, ideally several times a week, with a planned sequence from year to year. Children build real but modest skills: simple conversations, short reading, and basic writing.
Immersion and dual language programmes teach part of the regular curriculum in Spanish. In one-way immersion, most students are English speakers learning Spanish. In two-way or dual language programmes, classes mix native English speakers and native Spanish speakers, and both groups learn through both languages. Common models split time 50/50 between the languages, or start with most instruction in Spanish and shift toward a balance by the upper grades.
The difference in outcomes is large. Immersion students typically reach a level of Spanish that weekly lesson programmes can’t approach, because they spend many more hours using the language for real learning.
How it works in UK primary schools
In England, learning a foreign language has been a statutory part of the curriculum at Key Stage 2, ages seven to eleven, since 2014. Schools choose the language, and French has traditionally been the most common, with Spanish the main alternative and growing in popularity.
The British Council’s annual Language Trends England survey tracks how languages are taught across primary and secondary schools, and repeatedly highlights the gap between the time primary schools can give languages and what’s needed for solid progress. Most primary pupils get about an hour a week or less. Its 2025 findings also note that Spanish keeps more pupils than other languages at the age 14 and 16 choice points.
A long-standing challenge in the UK is transition. A child who learns Spanish for four years at primary school may move to a secondary school that teaches French, or that starts Spanish again from the beginning. Families choosing a secondary school can ask how it builds on primary language learning.
What makes any model work
Whatever the format, a few factors predict how much children learn.
Time is the biggest. More minutes, spread across the week, lead to more progress. Three twenty-minute sessions usually achieve more than one hour-long lesson, because young learners forget quickly without regular contact.
The teacher’s own Spanish matters. A teacher who’s confident in the language can keep lessons in Spanish, model good pronunciation, and respond naturally to children. In many UK primary schools, class teachers with limited Spanish deliver lessons, so good resources and support for staff make a large difference.
Continuity matters. Programmes that build year on year, with clear goals for each stage, get better results than ones that repeat colours and animals every September.
And enjoyment matters. Children who find Spanish fun, through games, songs, stories, and movement, are more likely to keep going when it gets harder.
What families can do at home
Parents don’t need to speak Spanish to help. In fact, some of the most effective support doesn’t involve teaching at all.
Show interest. Ask your child to teach you a word, a song, or a phrase from class each week. Children remember what they explain to someone else.
Add exposure. Cartoons, films, and children’s shows in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles, give children far more listening time than school can. Many streaming services offer Spanish audio for popular children’s programmes.
Read together. Bilingual picture books let a parent read the English while the child tries the Spanish.
Look for real Spanish around you. In much of the US, Spanish is heard in shops, restaurants, and neighbourhoods. In the UK, Spanish-language community events, restaurants, and holidays in Spain give children a reason to use what they’ve learned.
For families who want more, Saturday schools, holiday camps, and online tutors can add hours that the school timetable can’t.
Families who already speak Spanish
For Spanish-speaking families, the priorities are different. Children who speak Spanish at home often benefit most from learning to read and write it properly, alongside English. Dual language programmes in the US are designed partly with these children in mind. In the UK, community and supplementary schools often fill that role. Keeping Spanish strong at home, through conversation, books, and family connections, helps children stay bilingual as English starts to dominate at school.
Questions to ask your child’s school
A short conversation with the school can tell you a lot. How many minutes of Spanish do children get each week, and in how many sessions? Who teaches it, and how confident are they in the language? What should children be able to do by the end of each year? How does the programme connect to what happens at secondary or middle school? And how can families support learning at home?
With realistic expectations and a little support from home, even a modest school programme can give children a good start, and a strong one can set them up to be genuinely bilingual.
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