Anyone else’s local schools restrict language/MFL choices?

[Smallwinsmaketheworldgoround]

I’m going to start with, I know schools can only teach the languages they have teachers for.

However, I’ve been looking at secondary schools and I’m shocked at how all of them only allow one language to be learned whilst encouraging multiple sciences, multiple DT/Engineering subjects, multiple arts and both humanities. At all the schools, at GCSE, the pupils can choose more than one of every category except for languages.

So

School 1
Teaches French to everyone, 2 lessons a week for Y7-Y9, and then hand picks the ones who can learn German but they take one of the French lessons to do this so will be 1 lesson of French and 1 lesson of German. There’s no thought put into the language the kids have learned in primary and that some might be more suited to one language than another.

School 2
Teaches French and German for Y7 and Y8. 2 French and 2 German a week. They then have to drop one for Y9 and do 3 lessons of the one they choose. So, when it comes to GCSE, they have only one language to choose from.

School 3
Teaches French, German and Spanish in Y7 for 1 lesson a week. Y8 then have to drop one and get 2 lessons a week of the 2 they continue with and in Y9 they drop another so only doing one language and have 3 lessons a week. Again, have only one GCSE option.

School 4
Put them into either French or Spanish all the way through Y7-9 for 2 lessons a week. No thought given to the languages learned in primary.

These are only 4 examples but all schools here follow one of these patterns. No school allows 2 or more languages all the way to GCSE options so means all kids here can only ever do one language option.

Is this the way all schools run languages now?

For DD1 (currently year 9) ours offered Spanish for all and a choice of either German or French for years 7 & 8, then they dropped one in year 9. I think in theory they could still do two at GCSE, but obviously it would be tricky to pick it up again having missed a year.

DD2 starts in September and they aren't offering German any more, so they will all do French and Spanish.

Bluntly, given how fucked young people are by brexit, what’s the point?

i did French and German gcse, German at AS and Italian gcse as an adult. It’s fun but it will never be useful for work now.

My daughter learnt French throughout primary but even though we informed the secondary, all of her classmates were given forms with other languages despite there being several forms learning French.
Daughter is excelling in German and German teacher even mentioned taking up French in year 9 when they can choose to take a 2nd language.
At one of the other local secondaries, they don't even teach French - so all their learning at primary doesn't really help at all.

It is very easy to get a language tutor on zoom and not necessarily that expensive. If you want a more bespoke education for your children, I would look beyond state provision. It does depend on your finances though.

In short:

1. Huge shortage of MFL teachers.
2. Massive amount of content in new curriculum so no time to teach more languages. Most schools are having to start GCSE Science content in Y9/end of Y8.
3. No money

My dc school teach French or Spanish in alternate years so the current Y7 do french and next year will do Spanish.

They only have to study a MFL if they are following the Ebacc route to GCSE.
DD is in year 11 and dropped French and DS1 who's in year 9 isn't doing French either. DD picked up iMedia instead and DS1 is doing business studies. Their school only offer 1 subject + a MFL or 2 if they don't so many students don't bother and swap to a different subject.

The school also offer Urdu, Arabic and Russian GCSE exams but they don't teach them, they just host the exams, presumably to students who have studied the subjects privately.

There has been a shortage of MFL teachers for 50+ years.

Often been covered up by using very poorly qualified staff who also eg have never spent much time in the country and can't therefore speak well / understand native speakers themselves let alone teach students how to.

I taught MLs for 14 years in 4 different schools ending up as Head of Dept.
I was the only specialist 'good honours graduate' in all 4 schools. It didn't stop them offering eg A level after I left - to be taught by someone who had never specialised in the subject let alone spent anytime other than a short holiday abroad.

This problem is compounded by 1. teaching eg only 2 1 hour lessons a week when it is very important to practise languages everyday 2. teaching MFLs in large groups of 30+ so very little time spent on oral skills. (I remember an exchange group of teachers from Russia asking how we thought it was possible to teach languages like this as they would have 12-15 max!)

I guess the root problem is having 1 hour lessons in most subjects when we know that students can't concentrate for this long so time is wasted with 'filler' activities/worksheets/ downtime while students relax etc as opposed to eg concentrated oral work in MFLs in a Language Lab eg. ( Too expensive I guess for a subject we don't think is important in this country.)

It is common to have say 5 lessons a day as opposed to the 7 I had at secondary. So, as mentioned above, 25 lessons a week as opposed to 35 so naturally there is less time to fit subjects in.

When I left teaching I was the last to leave of the cohort of about 40 who had trained with me. Most left within 5 years of starting.

My 2 children got As in GCSE. I flatter them when I say they knew half what I did at O level.

I learned French, Spanish, German and Latin at secondary. DS has only the choice of French.

One of the larger secondaries offers Mandarin now, but it's unusual.

Wow. Thanks everyone. I knew there had been pressures on schools in regards to money and a shortage of teachers for MFL (and for other subjects) but I didn’t realise things had got so bad!

I was asking out of interest, not for any specialist educational reasons, although it’s a shame, if that’s the way things are, then that’s the way things are.
When I was at school everyone did 2 languages up to GCSE and those who wanted to could continue with both, those who weren’t interested dropped both, and some took only one. As far as I remember, all the schools were the same.

Re the matching with primary school languages. It would make sense to try and match up the language taught in primary to the secondary. I agree, I definitely don’t think we teach language in primary particularly well, but, by teaching kids something they are still learning some very basics. To then tell them, “you will be learning this completely different language now don’t worry about what you learned in the one you’ve started in primary” is surely counter productive. Does that not give the message that it wasn’t important? And what about the effort the primary teachers put in to teaching it?

Re everyone has to do 3 sciences. Yes, and I agree with this. I believe everyone should have a good general education which includes English, maths, science and a few other subjects. I also think it’s important to allow kids to experience a range of subjects to figure out what they enjoy. For people who are very good at and really like sciences, there is triple science and computer science which are beyond/higher/extra/in addition to the combined science everyone does. There are some who are really good at arts and can do art and music and drama all the way to Y9 and choose more than 1 for GCSE. The same goes for those who like humanities. Both history and geography are allowed to Y9 and both can be chosen at GCSE. We would never allow dropping one in Y8 or Y9.

However, our future linguists, nope, sorry, you’re not allowed to do more than one language. How about an extra science even though you’re completely not interested? Or an extra arts subject even though we all know you have no clue how to play an instrument, you get stage fright and you can’t figure out which end of the paint brush to use? The different languages are different subjects, just like history and geography, we can’t say oh that’s MFL just like a PP objected to me grouping history and geography as the humanities.

Plus as it’s been mentioned, this lack of opportunity in languages is going to impact on A Levels and university and beyond. I know languages aren’t for everyone, and that’s fine, but for those who like languages, and even for everyone else just to have the opportunity to try them, it’s a real shame things have got this bad and from some of the comments I can see this just isn’t going to improve any time soon.

My old school (London comp)used to teach French, German, Latin and Greek to O and A Level. Now they teach French, German, Spanish, Latin, Japanese and offer pupils the chance to sit exams in their home languages.

Our local comp and another local school both teach French, German, Spanish and Latin.

All these schools offer language clubs, exchange trips and / or holidays, and our local school used to open up their language labs at a heavily subsidised rate to local residents in the evenings.

If I remember rightly a language was compulsory at KS4 until 2002. Not surprisingly the number of children taking a language GCSE dropped as soon as it stopped being compulsory.

The EBacc encourages children to keep a language in key stage 4 but many don't want to do one and there always threads here from parents asking whether it matters if their child doesn't take a language at GCSE. The answer is usually a resounding 'no'.

When I was at secondary school in the 1970s, we all learned French in years 7 and 8. Then those who were good enough at a French chose another language in year 9 (I chose German, but could have done Spanish or Latin). My school made us do one language for O level (or CSE). Many of us, including me, did two.

@ElizaMulvil your point about lesson length is an interesting one, but I had 5 hour-long lessons a day back in the 1970s. I assumed that was the norm

DD's comp has Spanish, French, German and Latin on offer in Y7 and you have to pick 2. In Y8 you can drop to one or continue 2.

One of those is a compulsory option for GCSE unless you have SEN and school will facilitate you doing as many as you want (plus a range of other native language GCSEs via twilight classes). School runs a 3 year GCSE programme so you pick options in Y8.

As a language lover, I agree that it is a huge shame. Don’t worry though, it is easy to pick up a second language from scratch when the child does A Levels.

DC school (standard comp) does French, German, Spanish and Mandarin 12 (ish) weeks each in Y7. They then pick 1 or 2 for Y8 and Y9 and can do 1 or 2 for GCSE. They can also do Latin after school as a GCSE.
My two DC gave up languages at the first opportunity (sadly).

It is common since COVID to have one or no applications for teaching jobs, not just in MFL but also Maths, Physics, Computing.... I am currently down all of those teachers in a small school with good behaviour near a big city. Less desirable places to teach are faring much worse.

Picking up on your point, OP, that you can choose both Geography and History as GCSE options, there have been previous threads about schools setting overall limits on GCSEs taken (eg 8-9) and/or enforcing Ebacc subject selection which resulted in school-specific policies saying you could only take Geog or History, not both (with all the consequences this has for subsequent A level choices); so restrictions are evident there too. However, I agree that this interesting thread has highlighted particular dilemmas for MFL.

DD's school (grammar) they choose either French or Spanish for y7. Y8 they can stick with their choice, change to the other, or swap to either German or Chinese. Whatever they choose in y8 they take through to GCSE.

From y9 they can choose an additional GCSE in French, Spanish or Latin.

My kid has been learning a whole subject just through watching Oak Academy videos and hasn't had a permanent science teacher yet, so a choice of languages doesn't feel like a pressing issue to me at the moment.

Wow. In school? I thought oak academy has massively been reduced.

My DC school offers only compulsory French from Y7 to Y11. The reason is lack of teachers and underfunding. My DD, now Y12, hated it and got a grade 2 which was a complete waste of her time. My DS, now Y10, who is a very keen linguist also hates it and is struggling with it because he has no interest.

It’s been mentioned up thread about how number taking languages at GCSE dropped in 2002. I sometimes wonder whether we teach the wrong languages and it isn’t a lack of interest in language learning, but a lack of interest in the languages taught.
For example my DS has been friends with a polish boy since year R and over the years has developed an interest and ability in polish. He can interact conversationally with his friends parents. He is now going to Saturday classes with his polish friend to work towards GCSE polish and is doing really well. They think he will get a grade 8, where as the compulsory French he is doing is school is predicted a 4. My DS and his friend, when they joined secondary, made friends with a boy who speaks mandarin. DS has slowly been getting the hang of conversational mandarin from his friend and this is because he has an interest. He also managed to pick up a few phrases in Arabic which he was interested in doing because there are a lot of Arabic speakers in his school and in our area.
DD has recently taken an interest in learning Danish. This is because her explorers group has been doing some things with some danish explorers and they will be going to Denmark this year. Although slow, shes doing well with it, and has learned more in a few months than she ever learned during GCSE French.

I know we can’t pander to everyone’s interest in every language which exists, but maybe this generation want to learn things like polish, mandarin, Arabic and Scandinavian languages rather than French or German. If schools offered those, we might get a better uptake in language learning. I know we have the whole issue of lack of teachers and financing of schools and timetabling, but it was just my thoughts in response to a couple things which have been mentioned.

Or maybe we are not showing this generation the real world use of the languages which makes them not interested?

Yep no teacher for that subject. Apparently it's completely normal and lots of schools are using it for lesson cover now.

Our yr7 do one of three languages and then pick up a second if they wish

My comp in the 1980s had everyone doing French to O level/CSE, then in 4th year (y10?) the top French sets chose an additional O level language from German, Spanish or Latin (Spanish was most popular even then, I did German). My DCs both had some Spanish lessons at primary school every week from starting reception so were ok with basic Spanish when starting high school - DC1's school had them doing both French and Spanish in y7 and y8 and they could continue both to GCSE if they wanted, I was really pleased about this but unfortunately DC1 wanted to drop one language so gave up Spanish. DC2 at a different high school could only do one language from the start, had to give a preference for either Spanish or French and has chosen Spanish. I have to say the quality of French teaching at DC1's school doesn't seem very good, I have had to help out quite a bit with my rusty 1980s O level french

My school teaches English and German to "native" level using the immersion method from the start. We also offer Turkish, Spanish, French, Mandarin and Polish on a voluntary basis, generally funded and staffed by the respective governments and mostly offered to children with that specific citizenship/language background. So they are meant to develop their native language further. We are a primary school, though.
Our linked secondary (grammar) school offers English and German (both at "native speaker" level, same as us) and then the kids get to choose either French or Spanish as their main language in Years 5-8. From Year 9, they can choose another. I think they also offer Latin, Mandarin and Russian as a voluntary option.

DC1’s secondary school only offers French.

He gets one French lesson a fortnight - he’s in Year 7. So I’ll be surprised if he’s gained any real knowledge of the language from such infrequent lessons.
I don’t know if the French teaching gets more intensive in the higher years.