More Language in our school

There has been a big leap in the number of primary schools teaching children foreign languages.

Minister for Schools and Learners Jim Knight welcomed news that 84% of primary schools now teach children another language, up from 70% on the previous year and nearly double the 44% in 2002.

Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) published today shows that traditional languages dominate, with French being most popular (89% of schools which teach languages) followed by Spanish (23%) and German (9%). But a small number (under 3%) offer Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Urdu.

Lord Dearing in his major review of languages in 2007 recommended that languages become a statutory part of the primary curriculum, building on the existing entitlement for all primary pupils to learn a language in class time by 2010.

He wanted to make languages compulsory in primary schools so that all pupils learn languages for a minimum of seven years. He believed that learning languages earlier will inspire children with a love of languages and motivate them to continue learning languages post-14.

Comments

[Jo Rhys-Jones]

This is great news and reflects a tremendous amount of hard work done at ground level in Primary schools - ahead of and in preparation for the 2010 entitlement. Of course the first cohort to actually experience this entitlement won't even reach Secondary schools until 2014, so maybe Secondaries can lay off knocking what Primaries are doing until then, and start examining their own attitudes to transition perhaps?