That £4m on Latin lessons should be spent on a modern foreign language

[newnortherner111]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/latin-state-schools-england-williamson-b1894202.html

Latest idea from the Education Secretary. Given that the Prime Minister has been in a Catholic church at least once, did he not tell Gavin Williamson that the Catholic Mass is usually in the local language now, and has been for over 50 years?

Encouraging learning Spanish for example would be much better and actually have a use in real life.

We don’t have to stop supporting MFL in order to offer Latin. We need to provide opportunities and engagement by being flexible.

I don't know why schools aren't teaching or offering languages more relevant and useful i.e. Urdu, Punjabi, Polish, Chinese / Mandarin etc.

There are Saturday schools to learn Polish, the culture, etc. DGD, who is bilingual, is starting in September to learn the grammar.

Likewise, there are Saturday classes to learn Mandarin, at least in
London.

@newnortherner111

One of the reasons I think that children drop a modern foreign language I agree is the nature of the teaching in some cases, and the perception or reality that it is difficult. The same would probably happen with Latin.

I'm still not convinced though that supporting Latin is better than more support for modern foreign languages, or indeed English at a lower level.

Really, the only reason the DfE have ever given is to 'stop Latin being elite' . What about ancient history, then? Greek?

I'd ask any state school to exercise caution in taking up Latin in an early inception tbh. We do it, the teachers are ace and the kids love it. However, our results are a bit poo in both GCSE Lain and A Level Class Civ, mainly because we have a mixed range of students up against the elite of private schools. Our kids are looking weak by comparison and being marked by examiners who are only usedd to seeing the very top. It was acknowledged one year that our AS cohort had been massively undermarked. Loads of appeals.

What about ancient history, then? Greek?

You need to be careful with ancient history. It's full of all sorts of nonsenses like Republics, democracy, revolts, and underdogs winning.

As we know, English history teaching is about the right sort of history. Know your place and all that.

Even the apparent shift to recently "discovered" history has a distinct undercurrent of "you plebs need to feel guilty for the sins of the slaving aristocrats of the 17th and 18th centuries" ...

Yeah I was joking about that : those too are subjects (even more) confined to private schools .

Latin is a great language to learn. Teaches you how to spell English words, and is a foundation for many other languages. I wish I'd carried on with it at school and done GCSE and A level.

We don’t have to stop supporting MFL in order to offer Latin. We need to provide opportunities and engagement by being flexible.

So what do we take out of the curriculum to make room for Latin?

I don't know why schools aren't teaching or offering languages more relevant and useful i.e. Urdu, Punjabi, Polish, Chinese / Mandarin etc.

Why are those languages more useful than, say, Spanish? Also, as it has been pointed out many times, it proves pretty impossible to get most English pupils to any kind of decent spoken level at an MFL by the end of A Level (which very few take anyway), never mind GCSE. In a language with a different script, that difficulty multiplies massively. Those languages are very, very hard for native English speakers to learn. I doubt a GCSE alone in Mandarin or Punjabi is going to be any use for much at all.

Presumably because loads of kids already speak them to a high level in the community

In some communities. I'm still not sure that it's a very workable plan to teach ab initio a language which some of the school's students already speak fluently and the rest will find incredibly difficult tbh.

Meanwhile, look what popped up on Facebook ...

Total waste officer money. Might as we teach Klingon