Those with children at state primary - languages question

[Daisykath]

Could I be nosy and ask what the set up is at your child’s school with foreign language teaching? What age do they start, which language/s and how much time a week? Also, who teaches it - class teacher or a specialist? Thank you!
(I’m a languages teacher and wondering how much work there is in primary schools - sadly I think not much!)

Some Primary schools I’ve worked in have had a specialist in to teach MFL( usually French) as PPA cover. I’ve seen HLTAs, supply teachers, even a French - speaking TA covering French across KS2.
In some schools it’s just the class teacher, who may or may not have any experience of speaking or learning the language themselves.
Where there is specialist teaching, the lessons are about 40 mins pw. If it’s PPA cover, then it is at least regular.

Hardly any at my school.
I'm the Languages leader (because nobody else was willing to do it) and I barely know any french.
Bit of a joke really.

My kids primary had a French lady (think she was a qualified teacher in France, now living in uk) who taught all of the French across the school to give the teachers 1 hour PPA a week.

The school I work in (support role) has a primary on a shared site. The Spanish teachers from secondary go over for lessons.

Ours did Spanish once a week from Y1 to Y6 with a specialist teacher (who also acted as cover teacher sometimes). Three form entry so she basically did 18 lessons a week.

Yes @Aramiss when the HT asked me to teach French as PPA along with PSHE I did hear the Girls Aloud song in my head. But as she said, nobody else in school, including teachers spoke French either! I really do work hard on it and check my understanding and pronunciation before each lesson- Google translate is my friend as the scheme doesn’t always give me the translation!! I find that some children pick it up really quickly and others just have a block and I think that’s regardless of teacher.

Our school start Spanish from the school nursery - just nursery rhymes and so on initially. The teacher is Spanish, and both my DSs have very convincing-sounding accents for the small amounts they say to me! It's one lesson a week per class (3 form entry school) but I don't know how long the lessons are.

Classroom teacher (primary) - not a specialistor fluent but knows some French or worked there for a while from what she told me. Lessons are 30mins, every 2 weeks but it's hit and miss. We do have an afterschool French club which is really popular. September the club leader is introducing a lunchtime club too. She's really good and actually French and often helps with the odd assembly.

Starts KS2, taught by a specialist teacher and the class teacher depending on Year group; 45 minutes a week.

Our state primary starts at Year 3. They are tough French by a teacher who moves around the school/trust all week teaching just French (no idea how good she is though!). 1 hours a week.

Local private school start French in Reception and then add Spanish in at Year 3. By Year 3 they have an hour of French per week for half of the school year and an hour of Spanish per week for the other half of the same year. Language teacher; same one for French and Spanish.

You’re probably better off sticking with private schools.

languages is definitely one of those subjects (alongside music and PE) which IMO is much better taught by a specialist, even if that’s just someone who has taken the time to learn the subject a bit (like the HLTA on the thread above) rather than someone with a degree in it. State primary schools are required to provide PPA, the schools I worked in used to use teachers/TAs to teach something worthwhile in this time eg languages, art, forest schools, PE. More recently schools seem to just use a class TA to cover whatever the teacher doesn’t fancy doing that week. Such a wasted opportunity, no doubt due to budget cuts.

We employ a peripatetic language specialist 1 day a week. She teaches throughout KS2, from Y4. She is paid M6 as a member of staff on a 0.4 contract. She works in 2 other schools in our area doing the same thing.
When she teaches the class, the FT class teacher has some PPA and a TA stays oin class with her.

Our state primary do French from year 3, one hour per week. There is a designated French teacher (a TA from one of the other classes) but her French is poor. It's often the class teacher taking the French lesson and our current teacher speaks no French at all! Never did it at school even.

They use recordings for everything, which I think is probably best in the circumstances, and I'm a fluent French speaker so I go in occasionally to take a lesson.

It is very noun vocabulary based but they have learned simple greetings and j'aime/je n'aime pas.

I was taught in a middle school system, so specialist French teachers from year 5 (school went up to year 8) which sounds an ideal job for you!

Starts in reception and has a specialist French teacher. Each class does 1 hour a week but due to the size of the school that does mean she is full time. The school also has spare classrooms so its a specific French classroom that the children go to meaning all the posters up etc are in French

Believe me, if my attempts to teach Spanish to my Y6 class a while back is anything to go by, it’ll be shockingly bad!!! Even following what was supposed to be an idiot’s non specialist teacher’s scheme of work, we all were pretty awful.

Believe me, if my attempts to teach Spanish to my Y6 class a while back is anything to go by, it’ll be shockingly bad!!! Even following what was supposed to be an idiot’s non specialist teacher’s scheme of work, we all were pretty awful.

I'mm a deputy head and we have a HLTA who is French, who teaches from Year 3 upwards. I have heard of schools who are dropping their MfL teaching (I don't know how they get away with this.) We wouldn't be able to afford a teacher and, if we didn't have this staff member, would probably use a scheme for the teachers.

Primary schools in a impossible situation. They usually don't have the staff expertise. It is a shame as the early years can make a great foundation for the secondary experience. I'm in a secondary school- no chance of release for me to teach at a feeder primary, we already missing 1.5 teachers in a dept of 5

French twice a week from Nursery onwards. Taught by a French Canadian so sort of a specialist. None of my kids seem to have actually learnt much though.

@BaronessEllarawrosaurus wow, that’s so unusual for a state school - whereabouts in the UK are you out of interest?

Starts in Reception, and we have a specialist Spanish teacher shared between three schools in a federation. One lesson a week as far as I can tell, though they may do more as they get older.

Seems good so far, learning numbers, days of the week, colours, animals, fruit and veg. Lots of songs and games.

I’m a class teacher and teach Spanish to my class (KS2). I have never studied Spanish and have had no CPD. We use a scheme but still it’s ridiculous. I think teachers should choose the language to teach. I do know French so could teach that.

At my DD's old Primary they start learning a language in Y1. They do an hour per week with a subject specialist. My DD is at high school now and ahead of quite a lot of the others so I don't think that is universal.

Sad reading. Really. I get the feeling that most primary schools would do better without teaching foreign languages. I really thought schools did better today.

I often miss English primary school for my youngst daughter living abroad but state school here does so much better teaching foreign languages (even it didn't benefit our daughter being taught English Year 1).

Teachers are well trained as most Scandinavians speak English well. Next foreign language is French or German in year 5 taught by teachers trained in the languages not random teachers.

Dc went to two primaries-primary 1 had Spanish from y3 by a language teacher who then moved to Spain but was so good he did it from Spain with a ta in classroom. It was about 1 hour a week. They learnt a lot and chose it in y7 as language to study.
Primary 2 was french taught by the 'cover teacher' was very basic and they hated it.
Both schools in same local authority so I'm assuming it's up to individual schools how they teach it.

I teach in Scotland and we have a 1+2 policy- children should speak their main language (English or Gaelic depending on the school) they’re then taught one ML from the beginning of school (usually French or German) and then a 2nd language should be introduced at 2nd Level (Primary 5 age 9/10).

Generally speaking the first language is covered in class and the second language will often see a tutor brought in (might be something like Mandarin etc). I will say though that despite this being the policy some schools are MUCH better at facilitating this than others.