MFL advice please!

[glinda]

Hello all, I looking for some ammunition for an arguement I may have to have with dd's school.She is currently in year 9 and studying German (Yes, I would have preferred french or spanish too, but this is the situation)She has travelled to Germany with school, enjoys the subject and is very good at it - gaining the Governors prize for German this year. However she has just been informed that as only 6 students have chosen German as an option for GCSEs they may not offer the couse. DD would be 3 years behind those students who have opted to study French so cannot swap and will be left without the chance to study an MFL at GCSE at all
Any advice or ideas about where to go with this problem?
I will copy this onto the secondary board too

Whoops - obviously I did copy this onto the secondary board

anyone?

I would have thought you have a good argument to take it up with the school - they are effectively denying her the right to continue her studies. QCA says: 'For MFL the main requirement is that schools must provide, for all students, access to at least one course in a modern foreign language that leads to an approved qualification' Complain to head in first instance, take it to govs if necessary

She is doing an NVQ this year so I suspect that gets them off the hook.

no it is a KS4 entitlement, they may be trying to play games, but shoudl be encouraging linguists, not turning them away! Its contrary to gov policy

qca

It is contrary to government policy. They say all schools should be aiming to have 50% of students studying at least one MFL to GCSE level.

Obviously schools have to be run in an economic fashion and a class of just 6 puts financial strain elsewhere, but it is certainly not unheard of for classes of this size to run.

I would be writing an extremely strongly worded letter. Time is of the essence and 'vague possibilities' soon turn into 'fixed decisions' as far as options and timetables are concerned.

For that reason in this instance I would be sending the letter to the Head, copied to the Governors, form tutor, Head of House, Head of MFL, etc. (I'm not normally a stroppy parent, but in your position I would be livid.)

I don't know but feel for your DD. At DS's school, they can only do one language to GCSE, and yet it's a selective grammar. I did 4 O'level languages at a bog-standard comp. The talented linguists at DS's school can do a second language "out of hours" I think- not sure if that option is available at your DD's school (or even if you'd want it). Hope you get the result you want and I'm sure some language teachers will be along soon (with apologies to duckyfuzz if you are one!)

I'm surprised at that lilolil.

ds1 is at a comprehensive (no grammars in our area) and they can do two MFL as GCSE options, plus at least one more that they can do extra-curricular if they want.

I know, I think it's dreadful Roisin. But probably due to the fact that MFL is the weakest department at the school (my humble opinion, but shared by many others including a parent who's head of langs at another school). Thankfully DS wasn't interested in a second anyway, but shocking for me with my background.

I agree with roisin, strongly worded letter to absolutely everyone....