Any MFL teachers about?

[professeur]

Hi,

I teach English in France (secondary, ages 11-18) and am thinking about moving back to the UK and teaching French and possibly Spanish.

I've got QTS and over 20 years classroom experience but I'm 50 next year, and have never taught in the UK. My degree was in French and Spanish and although I'm bilingual in French, my Spanish is very, very rusty.

My rough plan:

1. Read up on current MFL curriculum and best practice, & start brushibg up my Spanish.
2. Do some work shadowing during my school holidays.
3. Apply for QTS.
4. Take a sabbatical and try supply teaching/find a temporary job
5. Find a permanent job and move back for good.

What do you think?

Is there much chance of me finding work at my age or is everyone 25?!

Can you recommend any good resources?

Are schools generally willing to welcome people in to do work shadowing?

Anything else I need to consider?

Thank you🙂

I’m not an MFL teacher but I would recommend you looking at TES for resources and brush up on there.
You’ve got QTS so why do you need to apply again?

Thanks for the tips.
I'd need to apply to have my QTS recognised in the UK. It will be, no problem. It's just an admin thing.

Hi, MFL teacher here 👋.
Depending on where you are thinking of moving to, we are so short staffed that you'll be snatched up. We can't get applicants for love nor money to the extent that 2 of our 5 team members are long term supply (one only has some basic Spanish and no French and is actually a history teacher). I don't think you'll have an issue shadowing providing you have a DBS.

We are just about the start a new GCSE course (the current Year 9s), so have a look at the new specs on the AQA and Edexcel pages to get an idea of the level, vocabulary and exam skills.

NCELP and EEF are good places to go for resources and information about the new curriculum e.g. you'll hear "the 3 pillars" being referred to a lot now. As is the Facebook group 'Secondary MFL Matters'. I wouldn't bother TES as most is paid for and MFL teachers are very good at sharing on Facebook and Twitter for free.

Thank you @CheesecakeAddict for all that really useful info. Feeling very motivated now🙂

Area will be Hampshire/Dorset. I do see jobs come up quite regularly.

How would I get a DBS?

I'm 52 and only recently went back to full-time secondary MFL teaching after 18 years of being very part time and mostly doing supply, private tuition and peripatetic primary MFL.

I found it really hard to get a job, but tbh that's probably mostly because of the double whammy of my being expensive (UPS3 at my last school) and lacking any recent ft secondary experience. I kept being told my interview and lesson were great but... they gave the job to an NQT. (I got one in the end at a fab school.)

But schools are desperate for MFL teachers, and you won't have the double whammy problem I had if you haven't taught in the UK before. The school will arrange your DBS when you accept a job.

Thank you @AllProperTeaIsTheft .
Glad you managed to find a job in a lovely school in the end.

On that note, what red flags would you advise me to look out for?

MfL teacher mid fifties. MfL teachers are like chicken teeth. I would opt for temporary posts initially. This will give u the freedom.to leave. It is rewarding but can be extremely challenging

Red flags no permanent staff in dept. No clear rewards and sanction policy. High turn over of staff . HOD been teachin 5m. This sometimes happens in schools where recruitment and retention an issue

Hello, are there any MFL secondary school teachers in the UK here?

I’m in the process of applying for a PGCE to teach French and German and would be super appreciative if I could ask a question or two to a current MFL teacher.

You'd probably be better off starting your own thread rather than just adding a post to this one, @Ellie1237 .

I'm a current MFL teacher in the UK. Happy to answer any questions! One thing I would say is that German is virtually dead in UK schools, so you may find yourself effectively being a single linguist, which isn't ideal when looking for jobs. I taught myself Spanish late in my career for that reason.

I’m going to be honest I meant to start my own post after reading this one but it’s my first time in mumsnet so I didn’t quite get it right😅
Thank you for the insight !
I’ll DM you:) @AllProperTeaIsTheft

I am an MFL teacher -retrained in my early 50s from a different career. Spanish is now much more sought after than French, do I learned just enough Spanish to teach at secondary -really not difficult to teach up to GCSE -don’t teach A level. I teach in an independent school -no way would I work in state. Supply us the best way in -I was offered my job after a few days as agency supply so no need to go through the normal recruitment process. Agency will organise DBS.

DS is a Head of MFL and they no longer teach German at his school. Spanish is becoming more popular than French.

Agree re German. We've now phased it out and are only teaching French and Spanish. As others have said, Spanish is more popular. I was teaching French and German, currently just French but absolutely planning to upskill to teach Spanish too.

There are still places where German is taught. We are in the process of phasing out French, so I will take the last year group through GCSE by 2026! I also learned Spanish later on in my career. Good luck!

We have brought German back in as we were only having Germanists apply. We'll probably phase French out depending on the first lot of results as it's the least popular language and it's going to be so much harder with dictation and reading aloud elements in comparison to German and Spanish. French has been phased out in 3 local schools (with Spanish being the only language taught) because of similar fears and raising unpopularity of French in comparison to Spanish.