Languages at primary school

[TeddyBare]

Do your dc do a foreign language at their primary school? Which language(s) do they do? What age do they start at, how often do they have lessons, what kind of things do they focus on and how much fluency do they have by the end of year 6? Do your dcs enjoy the lessons? Do you think it's useful?
I'm looking at language lessons for dd which will be with a tutor. I'm interested to know how much is considered the "right" amount for primary ages dc and what kind of level they typically are at the start of secondary. Thank you for all advice!

I think just the simple discipline of learning one foreign language helps you with learning other ones.

My sadness is that the Latin teacher at ds' secondary school has just retired and not been replaced, so he won't get a chance to learn Latin. I found it so useful, not just for foreign languages but for English too.

French in P6 and P7 (scotland) here.

DD has done French for 2 lessons a week since Reception - she's now Y6. I think they follow a La Jolie Ronde programme. It is taught by a specialist teacher throughout the school. They also do a 3 night residential trip to France in Y5/6 - alternates each year; DD went last year in Y5. From what I can gather they use workbooks for classwork and homework, but also do a lot of role play, songs and rhymes, etc in class. They do speaking and listening, plus writing/translating. DD knows a fair bit - more than she admits to I find. She knows a lot of vocab but is less confident at putting it into sentences, although they do practise that at school - I know her confidence at speaking French was her target last year, She was able to use her French on holiday this summer and I think surprised herself how much she knew. Sounds like it is a lot of conversational/tourist French they do.

I'm surprised by how much it varies between schools / areas. Is that purely for budget reasons or is it also influenced by parental demand? I really like the idea of integrating languages in to other topics because it means the dc are learning the language and being reminded of it without it taking up much more curriculum time.

DS (Y4) does Latin and French at school. Wish they offered German as well.

DS was introduced to French in yr3 (greetings, numbers, weather, colours). In yr4 they are doing the same with Spanish. Was impressed when this year's yr3 sang the Hungry Caterpillar in French in assembly.

My dc do Italian, all the way from Reception to Y6.

dd1 (Y4) is not interested in the slightest, and can just about say 'ciao'

dd2 (Y1) has a few sentences, can sing a song, say her colours and numbers etc, and enjoys it very much.

We get some parents complaining that French would be more useful as more likely to be studied in Secondary, but tbh I really think just being introduced to another language is what counts the most at Primary level....