Mumsnet members get a 10% discount from Boden (including free returns and free delivery), The White Company, sweaty Betty, Luxury Family Hotels, JoJo Maman Bebe, Siblu, Blooming Marvellous, GLTC, Bump to 3 (the official online shop for Grobags) and more. Click here for more info Join mumsnet here.
Dd came home yesterday saying that they will start a mini (half?) GCSE in 2 languages next year - Y8. The reason? Lots of girls lose interest in languages by Y10/11 so don't do as well as they should. It's a grammar school ffs - surely good teachers can motivate allegedly able girls to get a decent language GCSE. I'm appalled by the dumbing down. It's bad enough that they don't teach Latin. Am I being a mad reactionary old bat or am I right to think this is a lame excuse at a selective school?
Here in France the really good schools now get the children to do the language exams of the national language institutes - eg the children sit the Cambridge English as a Foreign Language exams at the British Council for English, and the Spanish, Italian and German equivalents.
I think it's ntionwide. Dd's year will all do a half GCSE in RE in Y10 that they can increase to a full one if they wish to continue in Y11. All take a half GCSE in IT as well though it looks pretty boring to me - databases. Dd1 gets frustrated at school - I think she imagined grammar school to be more challenging.
I will complain. There certainly hasn't been any parent consultation. This year in Y7 they rotate doing a few weeks each of French, German and Spanish. After that they choose a subject to drop. It's a new initiative by the new head... We're so close to Europe here that you can see France from the local primary school playing field! I think for children to stop MFL before GCSE is far too early to make a decision that could affect future education plans.
we live in Germany swedishmum so perhaps the whole language issue is very different, German not having quite the same international profile as English. There is a lot of talk here about the increasing need for dc to master foreign languages - and not just one. So I find the idea of lowering standards quite odd.
I suppose in the English speaking world people are still quite comfortable with the concept that you can get by quite well with English a lot of the time. However I'm not sure when our dc are in their 30s/40s what the situation will be. I think reasonable mastery of one foreign language must be possible for most dc though, given the right exposure and interesting materials
I wonder if it's a bit of a red herring? Full GCSE courses usually start in yr10, so maybe by offering a half GCSE starting in yr8 they'll actually be empowering the children and making it more likely that they'll go on to take the full GCSE. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
yes Anna I'm wondering too how much language instruction they will have had by the time they do this half GCSE in year 8. Will he have been learning two foreign languages then and for how many years swedishmum?
Yes Y7 is the start of secondary Anna8888 - 11/12yo. Maybe I'm being too cynical and it designed to empower.... But that is the reason dd said she was told by the teacher yesterday. I know there have been some behaviour issues with one of dd1's teachers in language subjects and that has hindered their progress. Languages have such a low profile in schools these days. Dd2 likes German but has only done a few weeks of Spanish. Her decision seems based entirely on her view of the teacher! She's just started German again having last done it before Christmas. A bit more information from the school wouldn't hurt.
Lame excuse and am a reactionary old bat if you are High level language provision, including Latin, is pretty much our main incentive for wanting grammar provision for the dcs at 11 plus. None of the decent non-selectives locally offer specialist language provision. Dh and I are both good at and value MFL and the Classics and the dcs seem to have inherited our knack and interest. I think I will lose the will to live if their languages teachers are useless Swedishmum, I'm a bit alarmed about this development. Are you willing to hint whereabouts you are in the UK? I have a feeling it is SE...
My mother did a mini-GCSE in French a couple of years ago. She got an A and was horrified -- she'd been to an evening class once a week for about six months, hadn't done any work outside that and had very little grasp of grammar (she did have a French O-level from forty years previously, admittedly, but it was as rusty as yu'd expect after forty years).
It could just be that all members of my family are naturally gifted geniuses, of course. I have no objection to your holding that opinion, especially if you spread it around a bit .
If this was to be offered only to kids who otherwise would ditch languages I'd be up for it, but there must be a full GCSE available that kids are encouraged to take.
Last year i mentored in a good local Comp amongst the GCSE kids (arranged by Uni). The kids just didnt want to know with the languages. Now, its slightly different here as they have all got to do Welsh which probably is enough for those who are not gifted that way, but even those doing well hated it. why? When we were doing french it ws a generally liked subject, and unless you were in teh bottom 2 / 8 groups languages were compulsory anyway (French or German).
My first thought was that OP's dd would do 1 or 2 mini-GCSEs early, then go on to do the full GCSEs encouraged by the early success.
My English nephew is applying for a position in a Norwegian bank in Spain, interpreting between Norwegian and Spanish. I'm impressed, even if he does not get the job.
My DS is at a science/technical specialist school (10% selected by apptitude).To be honest I wasn't very happy to find that he was having to do 2 languages in Year 7, which are French and German. I have since found out he will be doing German GCSE a year early. He does not really have an apptitude for language and being dyslexic he completely lacks confidence in languages.
I would rather they concentrated on one language, and those who want to do a second language can choose to do so later.
My stunningly bright children will of course not be giving up languages . There is the option to continue obviously, but what worried me was that dd reported what teacher had said about children losing interest. That's my major gripe. At the moment you need a very good reason not to do one MFL at the school. It's to do with inspiring and raising expectations to me - but I taught music for years and I'm a bit of an idealist.
Marina, we are in the far SE - we're outside a rapidly expanding town by the M20 if that helps.... Oh, to be back in Bromley.
Kathy, I had the Latin discussion on options eve for dd1. I'd much rather she did that (bright girl who'd like to do law at the moment) than a case study on Kate Moss and Topshop in Business Studies. The local boys' GS does Latin.
Good luck with taking it up with the school swedishmum, let us know what happens as it is clear from this thread it's a hot topic for some of us We are in an adjacent borough to your former haunt and the language provision at the grammars varies from superb to acceptable (one is a specialist sports college which is fair enough). We are hoping ds gets into one in particular.
In my school we have about 200 students per year. In current yr11 ZERO do French and 9 do German! In current yr10 we have a whopping 20 doing German and about 7 doing French.
It is not possible for any student to do both.
But of course every student in the school has to do a Technology subject (specialist college) and an IT qualification and an RE GCSE!
one modern language is compulsory at ds1s grammar. French compulsory to yr10, they have to choose either Spanish or German in yr9 in addition to French. It is possible for boys to do two languages but as triple science is compulsory for gcse few do two. Ds1 and some others do an after school twilight gcse in Chinese. This is sat in yr10. mini gcse run risk of diluting languages somewhat? And what does if mean for girls who want to focus on languages? Are they able to take a full strength gcse? Surely has implications for uni and so on?
DS's Grammar school does French & Latin in Yr 7, + German from Yr 8 & a short course in Greek in Yr9.
French is compulsory to GCSE!
DD is at comp where top sets do 2 languages from Yr8. She is one of only 3 doing A level French (although lots took the GCSE) and the only student doing 2 languages in 6th form. She wants to do languages at Uni.
I think it's terrible that 1 language is not compulsory for anyone without a SN.
I love languages and went on to do a degree in them. I now work at a University and come into contact with language stsdents.
I truly believe the system is being slowly dumbed down to the point of embarrassment.
When I did my GCSEs, I had to learn pages and pages of vocab. A few years later, I did one of the "newly revamped" GCSEs in Italian in which I could take a dictionary into the exam and prepare a speech for my oral. What a joke. I got an A* almost without opening a text book.
Now the students I see at work, doing French as a DEGREE, have an appalling standard. They are, at best, what I would consider GCSE standard. It's not their fault, they just haven't been pushed or forced to learn a language the way it needs to be: thoroughly and by heart.
The trouble is there are quite a few subjects that it would be nice to have as compulsory, but as the children can only do about 10 subjects they have little enough choice as it is. I was slightly aghast that a friends ds at a grammar school wasn't doing a MFL (he was doing Latin though), but when you looked at his choices and interests it was all very reasonable really. Unless you up the number of subjects they take to 11 or 12 I don't think there's room to make much more compulsory.
I did 11 O levels snorkle, including 3 MFL and Latin. What I was allowed to drop was RE. Beety, I think the independent sector is still more rigorous about preserving MFL provision, which is good news for those in it of course.
I'm really disheartened by this thread! Not by you lot, but by the whole sorry state of affairs in schools. I am a language teacher and so obviously value language learning highly. I'm afraid I've never heard of these mini GCSEs (I am on mat leave though so not taking a keen interest at the mo in anything remotely linked to work!) - I'm wondering if the schools mean Language Ladder qualifications? You can take a series of tests and the points you score can be converted to a GCSE score. Languages are no longer compulsory so schools are taking the decision to abandon them basically because they are still viewed as some of the "harder" subjects and schools don't get their highest grades here. As schools are aiming to achieve the highest possible perentage A* - C (they can get a lot of extra funding for high %), these sorts of subjects are being dropped. Sad. I'd question it and let the school know how you feel. If nothing else, it will be a boost for demoralised language teachewrs whose subject is being downgraded year after year. In my school, we certainly feel less important than any other faculty area. Schools don't know what parents want if parents don't speak up and let them know.
Marina, you did well - but many schools can't timetable 11 and that can't have left you much (any?) room for subjects outside languages and Maths, Eng, Science.
Lets see: English, Maths & Science comes to 5 or 6. I think a creative or fun subject like DT/Art/Music/Drama for balance should be compulsory. If you then make a MFL, RE, history and ICT compulsory then you are up to 10 or 11 already with no room for choice. Subjects like Latin, Geography, second MFL would die out completely.
Right, email (in pleasant dd may be mistaken/sorry if I missed a letter about it but if it's true I can't believe it style) duly sent off to school as I got nowhere on the phone yesterday. Will report back.
Current options guidelines: Double or 3 sep science English lang English lit Maths Half RE in Y10 (can continue to full in Y11) Half IT Y10 Plus 4 more - one should be a MFL unless given permission not to. Current Y9 do French plus either German or Spanish.
I am ancient snorkle and ICT was nowhere to be seen at that time (unless you count punch-cards on a time-shared mainframe at ILEA HQ! ) I agree timetabling must be very tight these days. It just seems a shame that MFL is the curriculum area that is getting squeezed, with the knock-on effect on teacher morale and status that Rowlers reports Interestingly Rowlers, ds does French once a week at primary school. Even seven year olds seem to have the idea that MFL teachers are all bonkers, pace Enid Blyton's mam'zelle Ds loves French, gets a great report at it etc. But several boys in his class are already entrenched in a "poncy Frogs" mindset. Can that be coming from the parents?
Oh I think we massively underestiamte the influence we have on our children Marina. I have always found a direct correlation between interest a child has in their own educaton and the interest the parents have in the education of their child. A rare child indeed it is who can overcome the influence of their upbringing. They are usually very bright and very strong-willed. And very successful as a result! The amount of times I have heard at parents' evening "well I was no good / hated French when I was at school" from parent of child who claims they hate the subject more than any other. I'm not sure how we can be expected to motivate children with this mindset. I'm not bonkers btw. At least I hope my students don't think that...
My son is the opposite rowlers. He hates French and I loved it. He's actually ok wiht it, well hitting targets anyway, and no doubt frustrating the teacher who always comments that he has the ability to do better, but he says he finds it difficult.
He is at a specialist language school (state) and has to do two languages, French and German, which he loves.
He actually wanted to drop French so that he could do both Geography and History, along with double science. As it is he can't, so has had to drop Geography.
I am convinced that he doesn't like French because I liked it so much, and he's a contrary sod.
Dd not happy - she got hauled into Dep Head's office as a result of my email! The plan is that they choose 2 of the 3 subjects they've tried so far (for oh so many weeks each) and take half GCSEs in them at the end of Y9. They can if they wish continue on to a full GCSE. I don't think the teacher was supposed to tell the kids about the problems and lack of interest at KS4. I understand a number of Y9s are keen not to do a language.... Apparently German dept is suffering - parents are telling dds to choose French and Spanish as those are the places they are more likely to go on holiday. How about it just being an intellectual challenge? It's watering down. I'll be expecting dep h to confirm that all girls will still be expected to continue one subject to GCSE. Maybe I'll leave asking him to reinstate Latin till next week
MFL were never compulsory at O level when I was at school. But we all knew that you needed a MFL O level if you wanted to go to university.
I sort of see the point for not making MFL compulsory for the very least able of children.....for example I don't see a lot of point in insisting that kids learn to read a second language if they cannot yet read and write to an acceptable level in English.
But even without them being compulsory most of us did at least one MFL, why the change, do you think?
I think if you look at numbers mb, then in our time at school most of us didn't do one MFL - maybe you went to a school where langs were particularly strong? Nationally that was never the picture. I agree that it has never made sense for all students to do a MFL at GCSE - lord knows how hard it is to teach langs GCSE to low achievers. Change now I reckon is a lot to do with league tables. Now that schools have to publish results and there is a massive amount of pressure to get high % A* - C, langs are not pushed because they are "hard" GCSEs. I teach both French and German, preferring German I must admit. I don't get to teach a lot of it now though as French and Spanish are becoming much more popular. Sad thing is, my school gets excellent German results. (obv with me teaching ) And those children who choose German, really do like it a lot. I believe in choice.
Was chatting to friend who is French teacher yesterday and she says that candidates can gain a Grade C GCSE without knowing anything other than the present tense! And - what's more - that the standard of grammar taught at A level roughly approximates to that which us old fogies learned for our O levels! She said A level candidates have to study French literature in greater depth than we did but don't have to know the grammar that we did.
That doesn't surprise me fortyplus. I was a GCSE guinea pig and when we moved to a different area that summer I went to a 6th form college (very briefly) there were dozens of pupils in my French A'level class who picked the subject because they got an unexpected A! And most of them had no idea what the perfect and imperfect tenses were
Are they focusing more on oral mastery of the language perhaps in the sense of fluency of speech/better pronunciation? We were taught to read and to a lesser degree write French but we were utterly hopeless at speaking it and maybe nowadays they emphasise spoken language more and teach it more effectively than when I was at school.
I don't really understand how you can study French literature effectively though without a good grasp of the grammar. Sounds very odd to me, can't really understand the reasoning behind that change of focus fortyplus
Not wishing to disagree with your friend forty but I would dispute that. You do need a knowledge of perfect tense to get a GCSE grade C - the markschemes are very clear on that. And I would say A level grammar is no easier now than it used to be. In fact, in many respects I find the exams harder. I have taught A level German plenty of times and would say the standard the students are expected to achieve, not just in grammatical terms but conceptually, is very high.
you don't need to do lots of GCSE's to include a compulsory mfl though, at the dss' school they do dbl sci, 2x english, 1x mfl, maths and re and then choose another 3 minimum so ds1 for eg is doing history, geog and art. Talented/keen (ie not ds1!) students can do a third mfl, or varous other choices (music for example, tho' it's also available as a mainstream choice) as twilight/lunchtime courses so all students do 10, some do as many as 12, BUt all do aty least one MFL
Got an email from Dep H - the idea is that they can continue after Y9 - said he would have a word with the ML dept to make sure they were sending the right positive message about the subject to the girls! All girls will still be encouraged to take a language. There are quite a few girls in Y9 not taking one - and I know it's not all to do with real ability issues. DD1 is quite shocked by the can't do it attitude of a number of girls in her year. Hope that doesn't make her sound geeky - she's not,just motivated and knows hard work will give her more opportunities in life.
. 
. There is the option to continue obviously, but what worried me was that dd reported what teacher had said about children losing interest. That's my major gripe. At the moment you need a very good reason not to do one MFL at the school. It's to do with inspiring and raising expectations to me - but I taught music for years and I'm a bit of an idealist.
