I don't want my dd to do a modern foreign language GCSE, but the Head says many university admissions department require this now?

[hmcAsWas]

Dyslexic dd is hard working and bright and gets good academic results (however she has to put in three times the effort of anyone else to get good scores given her poor working memory, processing issues etc)

She is doing just fine with the majority of her subjects but is hopeless at Spanish (she took Spanish rather than French on the advice that Spanish is 'easier'). She is in Y9 and has been learning Spanish for two years but what she knows you could write on the back of a postage stamp. She really has not one clue - and none of it sticks. Language acquisition is obviously going to be much, much harder for many students with dyslexia since mastering English is tricky enough!

Head advises that students should do one MFL GCSE because this is expected by the Admissions Departments of most good universities? Is that so? I've always understood English and Maths as the must haves - do we really need to factor in a Modern Foreign Language too? She is academic enough to go to university and I don't want to scupper her chances.

I'd like her to drop Spanish and do a different subject. Only with a herculean effort and private tuition would she have a hope in hell of passing it - and the work involved would detract from doing her other subjects justice.....

It is total rubbish. School are bothered about their Ebacc stats.

Dd is in year 10 and was lied to in order to get her to take a MFL. After much arguing with the school she's just managed to be allowed to drop it. She was struggling so much. Even just this week I was told she now won't get into a Russell Group uni. Total bollocks.

Dd also dyslexic and if your dd is struggling now I wouldn't recommend a mfl. Dd was doing fine in year 9, was predicted a B at gcse. Then in year ten she fell apart, the jump in level seemed too much for her and she was now predicted an E.

That's so annoying WhoTheFuck - she could have avoided all that stress and trouble

School actually lied about option blocks and said she couldn't do art and graphics which she put down first as they clashed in the timetable. Two terms in I find someone else who was doing art and graphics.

It shows how desperate schools are to get their Ebacc figures.

That's infuriating

DD2 is very dyslexic and was advised not to take a language until the end of her schooling. She took Spanish in 6th year (Scotland) and passed the course. By that point, she was finished growing (which has a bigger effect than most people realise) and found it slightly easier. She continued with Spanish into first year at university. It is helpful to have a language, no matter what you want to study, so my advice would be to take a language later on.

So you the school is being untruthful and taking a MFL at GCSE is not compulsory?

I think I am going to speak to HoY DD has just done your Y9 exams and didn't really answer anything on the paper, I don't think her self esteem can take it tbh.

I think it's really shocking that schools are lying to children and parents in order to mislead them. I know that the school is between a rock and a hard place as far as OFSTED is required, but surely letting the odd child with specific learning needs skip MFL won't cause irreparable harm to their EBACC - it's not 100% or fail. And even if it did - the child's interests should come first.

Just realised that that was unclear. I meant that giving occasional dispensation to children with SpLd wouldn't do too much harm to the school's total EBACC rates.

My daughter's (independent) school has just changed the rules so that the current year 9 don't have to do a MFL. They encourage them to do a MFL or Classical language, and espouse all the benefits of doing so, but say neither is actually compulsory for University entrance. (They all used to have to do French and either Latin or another MFL.)

At options evening most of the questions were about this, with several parents querying that they had heard from headteachers of their other children's (maintained) schools that Universities will want to see it. Our head showed correspondence with (R.G. and equivalent, as well as Oxford & Cambridge) admissions tutors confirming that this wasn't the case.

Now, as it happens, most pupils are choosing to take two, or even three, languages. But some are only taking one, and a few (where there are learning difficulties) aren't taking any, or are taking a language as there's nothing else they particularly fancy and they want to try, but know they can drop it at the end of year 10 if they're struggling.

The head is talking utter rubbish. I agree with the suggestion that he be asked to name ONE university that wants it other than the obvious case of degrees with a language component. The head is probably obsessed with the school's EBACC scores which are irrelevant rubbish anyway. I am a big languages fan (DS doing 3) but it is not optimal for everybody. I recall UCL - where I taught - was fussy about it but it is currently the case that you can achieve the required level while doing a degree.

It's not just children wish special needs or dyslexia who sometimes struggle though. It's a problem if schools push any kids into doing a subject they don't want to do, and don't need just for the sake of Ebac stats. And very wrong of them to lie about the reasons for pushing a language.

Doing a language isn't cost free either - it means taking one fewer other subject, which could turn out to be one they get to love or excel at and want to go on with.

The words 'reasonable adjustment' are your friends here OP...

I happened to read this the other day in a school options booklet (thankfully not my Dd school). How are these schools getting away with peddling the lie that mfl is "needed" for University entrance it beggars belief and makes me so annoyed! Sorry OP not much help there but as far as I know it is only Imperial and UCL who have GCSE level language requirements and even then they are not allowed to discriminate ( so you can take a language at gcse level whilst at UCL.

I'm don't think this is true. MFL was a compulsory GCSE subject up until 2004. If there was a requirement by university admissions to have an MFL, it was dropped before then. It certainly didn't exist when I applied in the late 90s.

Nor when I applied in the early 1980s. The same stories about a language being needed circulated then, and were equally untrue (in general, at least).

Hi, I agree. UCL was the only University that seemed to welcome a language GCSE.

You might also consider another approach. DD is dyslexic with impressively slow processing speeds, yet managed two language iGCSEs with good grades. She had an advantage in that I spoke both languages reasonably well, having learned them as an adult, so was not tied to the way language is taught in school. She learns orally, and so immersion and verbal testing. French was relatively easy as we had always holidayed in France, and stuck the kids in local tennis, football and other "stages". Ironically because DH needed French for work and had not learned it at school. The kids enjoyed going to the baker to buy croissants etc. German was done through a Goethe Institut summer camp.

Then over the summer before GCSEs we went through the vocabularly in the text book. Perhaps 30 minutes a day. Orally, though with her learning from English into the language which is harder than the other way round. And over Easter she learned as many colloquial phrases as she could, plus reams of text for the oral. Really knowing the vocabularly helps and put her towards the top of the class leaving her more time to absorb the grammar.

It all sounds a bit calculated but she hoped to apply for medicine and so needed as many good grades at GSCE as possible. With parallel support she had a better chance of getting these in language than humanities. Oddly by learning to speak the language rather than pass the GCSE she appears to have retained more than her classmates and found herself at ease with the exchange students who stayed with her peers at A level. The kids moaned about my keeness that they learned languages when young, but I think they recognise now that having a useful level of French and German, and a better understanding of the two countries and cultures, is worth having.

(FWIW the SEN department at her academic private school were surprised she had opted for languages. She would not have been made to do them if she had not wanted to.)

MFL teacher here. It is not the case that unis are demanding a GCSE in a language but increasingly we are recommending that bright students who are dithering have a look at uni admissions requirements and in some cases we have made phone calls to ask directly. The response for popular courses - medicine, psychology, English - has been that where there are way more students than places, MFL is looked upon favorably. Moreover, it is seen as evidence a student is capable of old fashioned, rote learning with an ability to rationalise and just generally exercise some independence in the learning stakes. Rightly or wrongly, linguists are frequently considered to be more open to new things, different ways of seeing the world, being up for something a bit different.

If the teacher is positive of a good result (we work very hard and not always successfully to retain our best linguists at KS4 and beyond) then go for it. It may never be used but the day the double the salary job comes up in some far away exotic land with free accommodation, private schooling for the kids and 10 weeks holiday a year you'll be glad you did!!!

Thank you for that cannotlogin. I wasn't aware that unis looked at MFLs that way.

Back in my day (early 80's) I remember a boy in the year ahead of me who desperately wanted to read history at Oxbridge (cannot remember which one), but he needed a MFL which he didn't have. Tried, and failed, to do French in a year but didn't get the C he needed. He was very bitter about having received poor advice, which he probably had!

cannotlogin it is seen as evidence a student is capable of old fashioned rote learning You did register that OP and others are especially concerned about their DCs ability to do well in MFL because their DCs have Specifc Learning Difficulties? I do hope that as a teacher of MFL you do appreciate that rote learning is likely (though not necssarily, one of my DDs has a photographic memory but then that whilst it impresses secondary teachers doesn't get you very far at university level) to be something that a pupil with SpLDs struggles with? Universities appreciate when they get an application from a candidate with SpLDs that they will have many strengths but that is unlikely to be one of them. However with two DDs with SpLDs doing well at top unis, one studying Science, the other humanities, whilst in one case an MFL was required by the uni, one of the advantages of moving beyond GCSE when you have SpLDs is that achievement is much less dependent on memory and much more on the quality of your intellectual skills and creativity. It is one of the reasons that applications from candidates with SpLDs are welcomed, because they often have particular strengths in those areas. I really can't see that universities would be putting rote learning very high up on the list of academic qualities they are looking for?

However both my DDs were determined to study a language and one did two. They have lived abroad and that has made them appreciate the importance of being able to access other cultures, as well as having evidence of that skill on their CV in order to achieve their ambition of living and working overseas in future, as others have said many employers will be actively looking for a global perspective. It is certainly on the template of skills looked for by banks and accountancy / consulting firms.

I would second Needmoresleeps advice that sadly too often MFL teaching is not adapted to the learning style of pupils with SpLDs (it isn't alone in that though). My DDs both looked at every subject in terms of how they could overcome their weaknesses and focus on their strengths. They focused on which parts of the examination they could pick up the marks. In one case this meant that though she got an E in a couple of sections ( the oral being then a straight memory test was a particular issue) she was able to pick up enough marks elsewhere to achieve a creditable B. She has since learnt another language, very relevant to her degree, at uni and has found the teaching style there was far more effective.

You used to* have to at Cambridge but not any more - I've just checked.

*In the 90s. Which was a ridiculously long time ago now.

Our school which is a grammar school so you might possibly think league tables are everything doesn't insist on a MFL and says pupils should study what they enjoy. I also firmly believe that there is little value in current MFL GCSEs - I can see why they might be a good idea but don't run away that it will teach your DCs to speak a language, all it will do is teach your child how to pass an exam in MFL.

Another way of looking at it is that language can be a skill rather than a subject. I remember talking to a taxi driver in Borneo who spoke eight very different languages well. Because he needed to.

Part of the problem is that languages are taught by people who are "good at languages". They learn one way, others learn in different ways. The good thing about language is that almost anyone can learn if it is approached in the right way and if they are motivated enough. I don't think that the GCE tick box approach is necessarily the right way.

My firm belief, and I have little natural aptitude but learned four languages as an adult, is that you learn by using. What is your daughter interested in? Then buy the magazines, tape radio programmes or watch the TV news. Look up unfamiliar works and learn them. Visit the country this summer and talk to people. The Spanish tend to be really kind to people who make an effort.

That said it really helped that I spoke the languages DC were learning. And suspect they learned a lot more outside school than in. If I did not have the language, or if they did not have easy access to someone who did, I think I would have discouraged them from taking them. Language in schools is very dry and if you find it tough it would be very time consuming.

whatwouldrondo. My children are dyslexic. I am fully aware of the difficulties they, and children like them, face in school. I am also fully capable of using a range of teaching strategies to meet the individual needs of children in my classes. I do make a point of trying to understand what may or may not work for individuals. As do by far the majority of my colleagues. It's kind of what we do. There is a lot of spoon feeding in education these days - I suppose by rote learning I mean the ability to learn lots and lots of words, make connections, figure it all out. Ultimately, if you are going to be a good doctor, you need the knowledge to underpin the practise so I guess some admissions tutors are seeing a connection. It is quite difficult to coach someone to get an A* in languages, they are very much on their own in an exam and need to have actually learnt something to stand a chance of passing!!

I'm an MFL teacher, and I wouldn't recommend a GCSE foreign language to a child who is going to struggle to pass if they have something else they would rather do and at which they'll have more success. Head is talking rubbish.

Yes, universities do rightly identify kids who have got good language GCSEs as those who are likely to be capable and academic. But for a kid who isn't going to get a good grade in an MFL, but could easily do so in a different subject, it makes no sense to insist on a language.

Yes, universities do rightly identify kids who have got good language GCSEs as those who are likely to be capable and academic.

No, we really, really don't. This would make absolutely no sense for many subjects and would discriminate according to school type i.e. it would give an advantage to those who attended schools which make MFL mandatory and are able to supply strong MFL teaching from a young age.

I have occasionally asked applicants in interview why they didn't do an MFL at GCSE but this played no role in decisions. And more generally I don't think any university course has strong opinions on what GCSE subjects should be taken, provided there is a good mix of academic subjects. Of course the students needs to have strong enough GCSE grades for any given course, and to have studied subjects relative to their proposed course.

The response for popular courses - medicine, psychology, English - has been that where there are way more students than places, MFL is looked upon favorably.

I would suggest that people go and check directly. I find it very hard to believe that having an MFL at GCSE would make any significant difference to admissions in subjects such as psychology or medicine. (Actually I know it wouldn't be part of the scoring of candidates at my own university.) I could however believe that an MFL for e.g. a history course might be of some use, if say the MFL was French and the course covered French history.

I think it assumes that those sitting the MFL are going to get A/A* too.

I doubt there's any advantage at all to scraping a C grade in an MFL. Especially if that grade might be taking the place of a 2nd humanity or other academic subject where the child stands a chance of a higher grade.