Ms Diane Abbott – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ms Diane Abbott on 2014-06-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality and increase the uptake of foreign language training in schools; and if he will make a statement.

Elizabeth Truss

The new national curriculum introduces the teaching of a foreign language to key stage 2 (ages 7 to 11) from September 2014, which will increase the uptake of foreign languages in both primary and, over time, secondary schools. By starting languages earlier, pupils will have longer to develop their skills to a high level before continuing with language learning in secondary school. The English Baccalaureate is already encouraging more young people to take a language at GCSE level. Take up by key stage 4 pupils in England of a modern foreign language increased by over 20% between 2012 and 2013.

The Department for Education believes it is important to give teachers the flexibility to decide how to teach. We expect schools to identify the support that they need to prepare for the new curriculum, recognising that different schools will face different challenges.

We are allocating £350,000 this year to fund training on the new national curriculum for teachers of modern foreign languages in primary and secondary schools. We have also allocated some £1.9m to teaching schools to lead curriculum change across and within their teaching school alliances. 46 of the projects being supported involve languages.

The independent Expert Group, chaired by a leading primary headteacher, has published links to useful resources, which are hosted on the website of the Association for Language Learning. This is specifically to support the introduction of a compulsory foreign language at key stage 2. We are also making extensive use of social networking, including using high profile headteachers and others to raise the profile of the new curriculum, including for languages, through podcasts, webchats and blogs.