Do your year 7s study Spanish and English?

[Don'tcallthepolice]

My DS in high school studies Spanish and English 1 x1 hour of each a week.

My daughter I think has a gift for language but like a lot of Y7s gets confused between the 2.

They have now been offered the option to drop one in year 8. I don't want her to as I wanted her to continue both to gcse. I am fully expecting her to take the easy option and drop one. It's too early for this decision. I wish the school had done one language in Y7 and introduced a second language inY8.

I wonder what other schools have done.

Is this in England? I don't really see English lessons as learning a language.

I'm confused too. Is it some foreign language rather than English? Or you are in different country?

Did you mean Spanish and French?

I assumed you weren't in the UK but you refer to GCSEs so I'm a bit confused.

She’s being given an option to drop English?

My dd did three foreign languages last year. Was asked to choose 2 for year 7 this year and will continue with both for at least another year.

Sorry yes I meant Spanish and French

Some do as tasters. Then choose one or both if they are lucky. DD did two MFLs at gcse and A level and for a degree! I would not have accepted only one MFL! DC get three sciences. Linguists should be catered for too. In lots of state schools, they are not.

We had one language in year 7, with a second for the top 2/3 in year 8. Then in year 9, they could choose to carry on with both or either. (On DD's half of the year, about 2/3 continued with just the first language, which left them running 4 groups for 3 classes-worth of kids.) We thought the double language group would be very fast-paced, as they presumably needed to keep up with the other groups on half the teaching time, but for one language the pace actually seemed to drop (a pity, as DD got bored of it and so didn't continue in year 10).

I guess the reason your child's school does both in year 7 is that otherwise they end up choosing between languages they have studied for different lengths of time - which did result in a big imbalance in DD's school.

That's what I did many years ago, chose one after Y7. Tbh there is quite a lot of opportunity to pick one back up, colleges and universities offer ab initio courses.

Mine does Spanish, French and some Latin, which his (state) school now offers. I wish he would continue with two languages (I'm a languages graduate) but I think he will end up only doing one for GCSE.

DS is home schooled, but he does spanish,french and german. He has a 3 year plan to do his GCSEs and will do one each year.

At my DD's state school, Y7s do French or Mandarin (the latter offered to a smaller subset of children based on SATs and CATs (taken at school before they join). Then in Y8 they add either Spanish or German. They all therefore do 2 MFL in Yr 8 and Y9 and then can choose if they wish to take at GCSE. School encourages vast majority of pupils to take at least one MFL but not compulsory.

DSs are in Welsh state school and must do Welsh GCSE. They do French in year 7 and 8 and can choose Spanish in year 9 instead of French but can only do one of these to GCSE.

Different schools do it differently. I'm a languages teacher. Personally I think it's better to get one language a bit established first in year 7, then add a second (maybe optional), especially if the two languages on offer are a bit similar like French and Spanish. It's a shame most schools have ditched German- it's different, so it goes well with French or Spanish with less risk of confusion.

The school where I'm about to start teaching in September has all year 7s do French, German and Spanish, then they drop one in year 8. But it's a selective school, so all very able students. I don't think that would work in the average state school tbh.

Large comprehensive - year group divided in half. Each half does one language in year 7 (French or German) - no choice. In year 8 they add a second - Spanish or the language they didn’t do in the first. Ds is currently doing German and hopes to do Spanish as well.

TizerorFizz · "I would not have accepted only one MFL!" ... what would you have done about it in that awful situation. For the record, my DCs did French, German and Italian to GCSE + extra Latin. At the local comp.