Depressed about MFL in education

[MFLresearch]

I last year alerted my 6th formers about Sheffield University who have, regrettably, scaled down their MFL offering. A great shame but part of a pattern sector wide.

It is spectacularly depressing, as a MFL teacher in a state 6th from college, to track the decline of MFL over my teaching career. University MFL applications are at rock bottom in our college this year because of uncertainty about year abroad funding - Turing scheme is a lesser offering than Erasmus and our families cannot afford to make up the difference and fund the year abroad. Consequently, of my talented MFL students, fewer than ever will be pursuing MFL study at university. A-level uptake and degree applications are the lowest ever at my college - and projected to get even worse in 2023-4.

I heard on the grapevine that further MFL courses are under threat at universities currently offering them. A number of post 1992 unis apparently considering withdrawing them. Has anyone else heard similarly?

Posting really because it’s late, I can’t sleep and the whole MFL/teaching situation depressing AF (plus the government still not offering decent pay so my colleagues and I will be striking again).

Honestly, having experienced OFSTED recently, they pay very little attention to EBacc.

There will sometimes be comments on 'a broad and balanced curriculum' but that would rarely be a main issue.

The EBacc is pretty much dead in the water because this current government seems very uninvested in the art and MFL so isn't pushing it - and because they know there are no languages teachers and don't seem to have plans to solve this.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow Mercia - Feb 23 outstanding. Otherwise T and KingE. Both not inspected since 2012! Mercia is a strict school I believe.

Mercia just offers French. So for a school that says it’s traditionally academic - it’s clearly not. Big words but one MFL! I think many schools are like this.

That'd be the same as the much lauded Birbalsingh school, darling of the government.

You seem very keen to blame the schools.

In its defence (although I'm fairly sure it's an awful place to work), Mercia is quite new. A lot of emerging schools offer narrow curriculums and then some grow them.

Also, whilst it does only offer French, it does seem to make all students do it...

It’s hard. At my son’s school language results are comparatively poor. What’s worse, no languages or languages taught badly! I’m undecided…

Both are letting pupils down badly. I do partially blame schools. They are the architects of the curriculum and SLT create the ethos. Poor schools don’t get the best teachers from what I’ve seen. Creativity is needed to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum. Neither is it all about money.

Yup. No option whatsoever. It’s really not good.

It genuinely is, though. If 10 kids wanted to do A level Spanish, it would run. If three want to, it's not viable. If eight want to , but there's no teacher, what then??

I've let my child do Spanish in a school where they clawed about recruiting teachers who were long term supply, abroad, actually English teachers etc. It was chaos. Obviously he very quickly abandoned any thought of a Spanish degree.

I agree every school should offer a GCSE in one, preferably more, languages.

But if you don't believe the recruitment crisis is real, you really have your head under a rock, or no knowledge of schools as they are now.

So in an even area they need to pool resources! It’s about creativity and not letting dc down. I’m lucky that the two schools DD1 got into took MFLs seriously. Thank God. Letting dc down is what schools do now because no one works creatively solving problems.

I'm quite sure no headteacher would say they don't want to run MFL : but backs are against the wall. Some HTs are possibly more MFL inclined than others.

How do you 'pool resources' in an area where your nearest other secondary school is 8 miles away (and also has no MFL teachers)? Not all schools are in consortium friendly areas. And the death of LAs has pretty much killed off consortiums. Possibly in city schools these arrangements do exist at times.

Your DCs were at school quite some time ago (and privately educated). Things have changed. Not for the better, no. But state education was decently funded then and recruitment was not in crisis.

As said multiple times, I am pro MFL. But the reality is there are deep seated issues and external forces have caused them.

It's not 'poor schools ' that don't get the best MFL teachers. All schools are struggling.

Well we do have some MFL teachers. I do know that it’s not easy in rural areas to work together but not to, in urban areas, that’s a failure of management. One of my neighbour’s dc went to our local secondary modern. He did FM. They don’t offer it. He went on the bus to the grammar. Ditto another neighbour who wanted chemistry. Both clever dc but didn’t transfer to grammars for 6th form. Not exactly sure how the schools worked together but they did. We have two grammars next door to each other. We have another two next to each other in another town. The distances between some grammars and secondaries is negligible. We need to start working together where we can, but these modern mats cannot manage it. I think our grammars are stand alone academies but I might be wrong. It’s about time we were creative and stopped making excuses.

Plus I would never ever have let a dc of mine get near the Michaela school. I don’t like the deal there. Mercia and others follow that style and it suits some, presumably.

There are many schools now copying the Michaela school approach. There's a school im aware of that was also called one of the strictest schools/ detentions for anything/narrow curriculum/ silent corridors/ tracking speaker during lesson/rote home learning every night is the model. They had a picture of a tory prime minister in their entrance when they visited and their ofsted was glowing. The government LOVE the michaela school model.

Now just 5 or 6 years later and I'm working with more schools and aware of just how prevalent this philosophy is becoming.

It's cheap - it's easy to train/churn out teachers that just follow the rules and read the preplanned powerpoints and detentions for all those children who can't cope.

It also gets results as they are literally drilled to the test from year 7.

Honestly Education is falling down and has been fir a while. We are hemorrhaging teachers and have been. Schools are staffing with young/cheap teachers and so results driven that this has become the result.

It will be a million miles from private schools of the past. And it's getting worse 😔.

Obviously, I know the town you are talking of and this proximity of schools is pretty unusual. I wonder if there is still also this cooperating since academisation.

Even in the bigger town near me , there is a considerable distance between schools, apart from one rogue example I can think of where they are across the road form each other. And those schools are 11-16 and in different trusts.

There are several towns with grammars or schools side by side in my county. Or a short bus ride away. It’s something worth looking at in many towns.

Different trusts is the stupidity of course. It’s ludicrous to think they cannot come up with creative solutions. They need to put dc first. Not their management structures.

Where you can, sharing teachers to double A level class sizes is a no brainer. Even for different trusts. I can think of many areas with a quick bus route between schools. In areas where collaboration is possible, it should happen. Not just for MFL either.

I really am stalking you today, @TizerorFizz

Perhaps this willingness to cooperate is the heart of the matter. How are the pupil’s tuition funds allocated when they take a subject at a different site? Doing admissions I heard many sad tales from pupils who were simply not allowed to do this for FM. They had to take all subjects within their own school or college.

I began to assume the motivation was money. Perhaps that is too cynical. Middle class parents fight for their DC or change their schools; the others are too intimidated or too tired.

PS a generalisation of course and I am always happy to see examples of exhausted single mums and working class parents standing up for their DC. But so much seems to come down to money

@poetryandwine Ive not asked my neighbours about who paid for dc to take a bus to the grammars. Both smiling DC were pictured by their secondary modern school in the local News publication and one had FM and one had Chemistry A level. Neither offered at their secondary modern. So they definitely went to the grammars for those subjects and not taught at home. I am assuming the schools paid over a sum for the lessons. DC with FM went on to study Maths at uni.

I was also aware dc from some primaries had outreach teaching from the grammars. They were allocated a grammar within the school hub. Not sure if it happens now but losing this type of cooperation is sad. The schools with parents less likely to look at a grammar were targeted. Collaboration is hugely valuable where students want subjects not taught and can reasonably travel.

These dc would have got free travel to school so maybe that included onward travel to the grammars as others from here were going to the grammars anyway. Just a thought.

Free buses went ages ago. My DS had to pay an annual fee for a shuttle bus to take him from our village , where the main school is situated, to the sixth form provision in a different village.

The main reason we knocked the Spanish on the head was that the school offering it was inaccessible by public transport from where we live.

Thank you both. Travel is part of it. I had the impression that the need to pay over a sum to provide tuition was an issue for some pupils I spoke with. Surely the dire strait schools sre in now doesn’t help with that.

I sm not forgetting the teacher shortage either.

@Piggywaspushed Yes. You are right it’s not free for most. Rural parents discriminated against! Actually we were an unsafe walking route to primary and this still might be free transport. However where there’s a will there’s a way.

We used to have payments between one LA and neighbouring ones where dc went to school or FE not in their home LA. We had a formula for the payments. This ceased around 92 when FE and HE floated away from LAs and Trusts presumably don’t bother. It’s not huge numbers if it’s just the MFL and a few stem ones.They are also easy to track. I’m not sure why my neighbour ‘s DC didn’t change schools but our local sec mod is very good in many ways and they found a way to help.