to think this government hasn't got a clue about education- why should all children be made to take MFL at GCSE?

[LuluJakey1]

What is it with the ill-thought out education ideas this government has? Why should every child take a GCSE in MFL? It is not something many children enjoy or feel has relevance to them.

Why should a school not be able to be outstanding if it does not make all students take a GCSE in MFL?

I went to school in Switzerland where English, French and German were in fact compulsory (and, yes, I came from an English/German bilingual home but this applied to everyone). Also took Spanish, Latin and - briefly - Italian because I was more of a languages type. Still had to take both math and physics anyway.

I went on to take an IT degree back in the UK and was absolutely gob smacked to find some of my fellow students had not studied math to A-level standard. Went in feeling apprehensive about my ability to keep up given my education, came out at the top of my undergrad mathematics for IT course. Nowadays I use my language skills a lot in my IT job at a multinational.

Long story short: having a comprehensive curriculum forced on me has turned out to be surprisingly helpful - albeit not exactly enjoyable at the time. The only case in which I would not necessarily be in favour would be some kind of SEN.

MagicalHam if there is anything more concerning about the UK system than its attitude to MFL it's the fact that students can completely abandon whole subject areas at 16.

It is shocking that anyone should arrive on an IT course having done no post-16 maths, and equally shocking that writing skills are not taught to would be scientists, who may need to write a PhD thesis one day. (I'm not suggesting that less able students should be forced to study maths A level, but that functional maths skills should continue to be reinforced through sixth form).

Wholeheartedly agree that the narrowness of English education is shocking. In Germany German, a language, science, a humanity have to be studied to age 18. Here the lack of general knowledge is just shocking.

My main concern with allowing MFL to become an also-ran (as they did under the Blair administration) is that independent schools continue to value them and teach them.

The gap ever widens.

Now the answer to that probably doesn't lie in making MFL compulsory to everyone. There are clearly some DC who should be exempted (as there are in private schools). But surely an understanding of MFL should be part and parcel of any decent education for many pupils?

Agree misti Dorothy magicalham.

Someone upthread asked what I meant about my son's school not offering the e-bacc. Sorry what I meant was that it won't be compulsory, so students won't need to do a MFL or history/geography. But they will be able to do it subject to timetable constraints.

And as you rightly point out, RE is compulsory and my son's school intend that the kids will get a GCSE out of the compulsory lessons (at my school we had an hour's compulsory lesson a week and then GCSE lessons on top if you were doing RE GCSE).

As for specialising too early - I've always thought that the IB (and to a lesser extent, the German Abitur) really sorts out the sheep from the goats as you need to be good at everything for that. You can't opt out of Maths and science and do all languages at A level for example (or just do sciences and no humanities). But I'm not so concerned about specialising at 18, but there should be a broad offering at 16 for as long as GCSEs exist.

(as a side note, if GCSEs are abolished, what will the kids in 11-16 schools do - for them it IS a school-leaving exam, I went to an 11-18 school).

Good point that students at private schools can get exemptions - often with less trouble than at state schools!

Of course it's possible for those who do not manage to learn MFL with the current methods in UK schools to learn when immersed - the dyslexic members of my family seem to pick up accents and language rather nicely (albeit slowly) abroad as they focus on social interaction.

My 2p worth is that without ibacc you are forced to narrow down post 16 with a range of a levels that narrows your future choices. It's not possible to do language and a humanity and math /science. - or if you do, you end up with a bitty a2 portfolio that no one wants - a single science ? Not helpful in the while.

Dd is doing English history maths and music. It's the best she could get to a broad portfolio. It's not really what she could / should do. Some science and some language would be great but we'd have to move to an independent to do a bacc (the only state grammar that offered a choice has recently gone a levels only )

I have a degree in German, as well as A-levels in French & German, and they have been near useless to me career-wise. And the vast majority of people I know who studied languages have not ended up really using them. I still really regret how studying those subjects narrowed my horizons career-wise, and I believe it would be far better to make a science/maths/IT subject compulsory until 18.

Others I know who did not study languages at all at school have gone on to live in other countries and have learned, and become fluent in, the language of the country they now live in without ever having studied it at GCSE. I really do not see the point in making taking an MFL GCSE compulsory when there are far more useful subjects for life and future career.

Also, while I speak a couple of European languages, I am as flummoxed as the next person when visiting Asia, Spain, Italy, or anywhere other than Germany or France. Yes, I make sure I get a phrase book and make an effort to try and use a few basic words, but the fact is, is English is the main international language, and we are very fortunate to be born in a country where it is the mother tongue.

lamsie,
I have seen MFL taught well in a special school for children with learning difficulties. Children with learning difficulites need to realise that that the whole world does not speak English. Like any other child they need to appreciate different cultures. The special school I worked at used to get the children to study French, German, Spanish and BSL for a couple of terms. In Keystage 4 the children had the option of doing entry level French.

I am not sure that its right to sacrifice every area of education on the altar of developing good numeracy and english skills. Why should MFL be the first thing on the curriculum to be sacrificed?

Hmm. I'm on the fence. We had to do French, Maths, Eng Lit/Lang, 2 sciences and History or Geography at O Level. No option on those, and everyone got a minimum of 7 O Levels, generally 9 though.

My younger DC have been learning French and Spanish (3 lessons of each/week) since Reception (now Y1 and Y3), and are both pretty proficient. I like this. I like that they have the opportunity to learn these MFLs, and I will certainly encourage them to continue when they move up to secondary school. Incidentally this is a state school. Of my older DC, one did French and Spanish and the others didn't do either, although one has now learnt Spanish after studying there for a year.

I grew up, well 6 years spent on a forces' base, in Germany between the ages of 6-12, and we all sort of sucked the language up through playing with our German friends. To this day, a fair old few years a LOT later, I still have a very reasonable grasp of German.

I do think, however, that while MFL should be absolutely encouraged as an option, I appreciate that there are some children who will just not get it. I'm totally shit at art, so why on earth would I take an Art O Level? I just wouldn't, and the same should surely apply to MFLs.

There has been lots of research done on the intellectual benefits of learning a language (google it). Is there any research that supports the idea that it is detrimental for low performing students? I have never heard of this, and can't really understand how it could harm someone's ability in English (as has been suggested up the thread).

It's not that it's detrimental to learn a language - it's that for some students it will be a poor exam result when they could have gained a better one in another subject.

Nobody is disputing that MFL are a good thing or that they should be encouraged, or that they're beneficial - of course they are.

But if they're compulsory within a school then there will be pupils struggling away in a MFL exam when they could have sat one that they'd do well in.

I agree MFL should not be compulsory. Dd1 wouldn't have taken one and it would have meant she could have taken art which she wanted to do but ran out of options .

Even crosser that RS is compulsory in her school and all the schools around.

But isn't that the same as english/maths/science? Some DC will do badly in their exams in these subjects.

But that can't be a reason not to invclude them, can it?

I hated languages when I was in school in Ireland - being a maths and science geek, it chafed a bit having to take Irish (in particular) and French all the way through to age 17 - I chose to take ordinary level Irish for Leaving Cert in spite of being on for close to maximum points overall because I knew I could pass it without wasting valuable science subject time on it! I do appreciate them more as I've gotten older though, they give a different perspective on other cultures and your own and teach you quite a lot about your own native tongue while in the process of learning. I took a one semester course in Japanese while I was at uni, really enjoyed it but never kept it up and it slips very easily.

My daughter has studied Japanese and mandarin until last Monday, she's got a decent ish grasp on Spanish in 9 days by putting her mind to it, if you can learn one it would seem to be a great help in learning another which I think is a gift for life being able to communicate

TheWordFactory - yes, but they're not changing now...

The more exam subjects become compulsory the more constrained pupils are about being able to sit them in subjects that will get them the best marks.

My issue with it was that my DS had to take French, he couldn't get to a level where it made any sense to him and even if he'd managed to improve...he often needs an interpreter in English because of a speech disorder, French is useless to him.

There were other subjects that he was among the top in his year for that he couldn't do the exam course for because he had to do French.

If you want more pupils leaving school with MFL, the answer isn't just to make the exams compulsory...that just increases the number of pupils sitting the exam that struggle with it or have no interest in it.

Aiming things to increase ability and interest in earlier stages of education should be what you do to increase language uptake.

I suspect that deep down a lot of people see MFL as a waste of time when most of the world learns English.

If we are going to have MFL in primary school then we need it to be taught well. My son has been put off for life with poor French teaching. My brother got a grade D in GCSE French, but his spoken French is now very good as he did a contract in France for 6 months. He cannot write French though.

We need our children to have more contact with the country that speaks their target language. Skype offers a cheap way to speak to foreigners. I would love to find a german family for my son to practice his german with.

The amount of people saying their DC couldn't do a subject they were good at/interested in because of the compulsory ones is a shame. Though it must be a nightmare working out the timetables

Then again it seemed odd to me at the time that you had to choose one from each subject area - suppose you excelled at Art, Music and Drama? But can only choose one? I know the idea is to get a broad range but it does seem unfair on those who excel in certain subjects but can only choose one or two of them...

Re. language - oh the shame when amongst a group of people who all spoke French, who switched to English when I was with them as I was the only one who couldn't speak it!

And the textbooks that other countries use when learning English - the questions are astoundingly advanced, I don't think I'd get a very good grade myself (as a native English speaker).

We do not teach/learn languages well here, on the whole... I think one of the problems is there being no obvious language to pick and immerse DC in from a young age. Spanish maybe? Whereas a lot of other countries there is a more obvious second language - usually English.

The problem is that we have to work with the system that we have- and the truth is that children- particularly low ability children- need English and maths if they are to have any hope of college course or a job or an apprenticeship. Forcing them to take a MFL is just going to make that harder. Campaign against the system- it's crap. But the children in the system now don't need their opportunities closed down any further.

Low ability children are unlikely to master numeracy or literacy because their brain is simply not up to the job. Making school nothing but maths and English lessons will not make them more productive as an adult because a tiny percentage of children will never master these skills however small the classes are or however many maths or English lessons they have.

I feel we need to look at children as individuals and adapt the curriculum to them. We need to think what we hope for that child to be capable of as an adult. Subjects that may appear to be useless can have transferable skills. For example teaching an autistic child BSL can improve their ability to read facial expressions.

I feel that vocational subjects should not be forgotten. A child with learning difficulties maybe able to learn a trade.

Why ted? Where's your evidence?

What? How can I give evidence that an argument doesn't convince me?

Ted , the difficulty I have with that is that the same applies to other compulsory subjects too, for examples sciences, you can make an argument for them, but a vast proportion of people don't care about GCSE science, and never use nor refer to any of it again. If it's really about wider skills, then languages offer those in abundance too.

That's not a difficulty for me. English language (not literature) is the only subject that is useful to everybody, no matter what job or life situation they find themselves in. Post-Year-9 maths or science are not needed in the vast majority of jobs. It comes down to a question of what our education system is aiming for - is it to instil a love of learning and the ability to learn (which needs to be done at primary school and, if it hasn't happened by year 9, has failed anyway), preparing students for jobs (in which case, how many people need post-year-9 maths or science, let alone a MFL?) or teaching students how to pass exams (in which case, let them take the exams they have the most chance of passing). I just don't see how you can argue that MFL is more important than other currently non-compulsory subjects.

Geography and history are useless for many people. However education is more than just producing people who are employable. We only use 5% of what we learn at school, the problem is knowing what 5% a child needs. Most adults use science even if they don't realise it. Knowledge of science helps people to make sensible decisions like controlling the size of their family and not smoking.

"Low ability children are unlikely to master numeracy or literacy because their brain is simply not up to the job"

Gosh. How are you defining "low ability"?