By default, the JDBCTemplate does its own PreparedStatement internally, if you just use the .update(String sql, Object ... args) form. Spring, and your database, will manage the compiled query for you, so you don’t have to worry about opening, closing, resource protection, etc. One of the saving graces of Spring. A link to Spring 2.5’s documentation on this. Hope it makes things clearer. Also, statement caching can be done at the JDBC level, as in the case of at least some of Oracle’s JDBC drivers.
That will go into a lot more detail than I can competently.