Primary Education: Languages

(asked on 27th October 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve access to second language teaching in primary schools.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 4th November 2015

Since September 2014, maintained primary schools in England must teach a modern foreign or ancient language to pupils at key stage 2 (ages 7 to 11). Schools can choose which language or languages to teach and should enable pupils to make substantial progress in one language by the end of primary school.


To support the introduction of a compulsory foreign language at key stage 2, the government is funding nine projects across the country to provide training for primary and secondary teachers. These projects bring together teaching school alliances, university-led consortia of schools, and a national organisation, the Association for Language Learning.


In addition, the EBacc has had a positive effect on the take up of languages in schools, with a rise in the proportion of the cohort in state funded schools entered for a modern foreign language rising from 40% of pupils in 2010 to a provisional figure of 49% in 2015.

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