1+2 approach to Modern Languages - what is your school up to?

[Inia]

All (I think) Scottish primaries will be rolling out the 1+2 Approach for modern languages from August. While I support the principle (we're bilingual in a non-listed language), I'm not convinced it has been thought through well. Our school doesn't quite seem to have the language capacity (they'll be doing French in 1-4; French & Spanish 5-7) and I wonder what the value is in having half hearted attempts when teachers need to do so much else already - will it be any more meaningful than watching an episode of Dora? Interested to hear others thoughts...

One of the nurseries I work in has started it at Gathering, we do good morning to each child in French, then the calendar, day, date, season and weather is all in French too.

Fine for me, I have higher French but some of my colleagues all did German at school.

Yes - it feels so half hearted, but it sounds like the school has little choice - although they are apparently allowed to ease into it. I'm not sure it has been highlighted much to parents generally. I understand that much will actually take place at things like line-ups, art etc... although as one teacher said, the suggestion in some guidelines of teaching history in French would be a bit unrealistic.

And as an aside - is anyone aware of where proposals to cut class time by half an hour for P4 and upwards are? It was mooted in our local council last year, but put on hold in light of other councils doing similar and that it should be a national debate... It just seems crazy to consider cutting class contact time and increasing workload for teachers and kids

Edinburgh schools have closed for a half day since 1988.

Yes however Edinburgh schools have longer days the rest of the week - still amounts to the same class time. My local authority had proposed similar but after a campaign by parents it has been dropped. It only saves mint by allowing councils to cut staff numbers as they wouldn't have to cover non contact time but the deal with the Scottish government to maintain teacher numbers means they can't reduce staff. The ratios have to stay the same.

Our school has been patterning with the high school to support 1+2. It's been in operation for the last year. My daughter's class - P2 - has learned Gaelic and French this year. It's been more than just watching Dora and they've covered counting, days of the week, colours, simple sentences ( much of what I learned in 1st year at secondary in the 80s). The library service has supported by supplying books in both languages and they are helped by having some native speakers on the staff.

High school are supporting by providing Spanish.

My kids have done French and Mandarin this year. Just learning simple vocab. I think progression is the problem. If they just learn vocab all through primary they end up bored. Then they go to secondary and schools have done different languages so starting at a low level. Then if you look at how simple n5 French is you wonder what the point is in starting young if that is all they are going to achieve by age 15.