Spanish VS Mandarin VS Latin? pros and cons

[MGJO]

DS is in Yr 5 just starting and likes languages and has time to add Spanish or Mandarin or maybe Latin. He is doing french at school and going well.

We live overseas, but considering 11+ or 13+ entrance to independent schools in UK.

I have heard some people say that learning Spanish is a must these days, but havent seen much evidence that is the case. I personally think Mandarin is more useful, but will it be taken as a big positive for him at 11+ or 13+ entrance for the more competitive schools?

Finally, he has done no Latin, but it seems this is quite widespread in many independent schools in the UK, so perhaps it is better to invest his time in Latin as the priority.
The priority is for DS to 1. Get into the best school he can and 2. Fit in easily when he arrives.
Please send your advice!

Hi, not sure about the Mandarin, but Spanish seems to be the prefered language of most schools, my dd started it in nursery and gone through reception and Year 1 doing it. Moved to another school and they don't do it, but start French this year (Yr3), which frankly I think is a waste of time.

Forget the Latin! I did this at school and has been very little use, unless of course you do lots of crosswords, where it comes in useful, or he is thinking of going into medicine, where there could be a use!

Latin is often more valued at UK indie schools than modern languages

If he is good at latin then he will pick up spanish later on in no time. Latin will help his english grammer and writing and the "decoding" that you need to do for unseen translations is very useful for learning things like computer programming. - so at this age Latin rather than spanish. Mandarin i guess would be an excellent academic training to, the only worry would be that his skills might atrophy if he went to a school at 11+ that did not teach it.

Just my DD's experience, but in French and Spanish teachers always say well she tries hard. However, mandarin has clicked with her she has all the correct intonation and draws her chinese characters better than she writes english and she is 8. She is very strong in Maths and there is some suggestion that individuals who ate strong in Maths do well at mandarin. It is essential that it is taught by a native speaker due to the intonation.

Latin.

Latin was compulsory in the first couple of years at my secondary school - I'd already done 3 or 4 years at Prep school though. I ultimately took it till A level.

Came in very handy when I moved to Italy knowing not one word of Italian - just spoke dodgy Latin and it all worked out quite well.

I'd check what is offered at the schools you are applying too.

One thing my sister came up against was going to a school that did Russian and Mandarin only to find that all the pupils taking the subjects were actually Russian and Chinese so it was really tough for anyone who was starting from scratch.