Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to increase the number of students studying Spanish in schools.

Since September 2014, maintained primary schools in England must teach a modern or ancient foreign language to pupils at key stage 2 (ages 7 to 11). According to the annual language trends surveys conducted by the Centre for British Teachers, 20 per cent of primary schools taught Spanish in 2014, up from 16 per cent in 2012. In order to support the new curriculum, the government is funding nine projects across the country providing continued professional development for primary and secondary teachers, including training and resources for the teaching of Spanish.

The government took action in 2010 to halt the decline in the number of school children taking language GCSEs by introducing the English Baccalaureate. This has had a positive effect on the take up of languages in schools. The proportion of the cohort in state funded schools entered for a modern foreign language has risen from 40 per cent in 2010 to 49 per cent in 2015. Over the same period, there has been a 46 per cent rise in the number of entries for Spanish GCSE in schools in England.

The government’s goal is that, in time, at least 90 per cent of pupils enter GCSEs in the EBacc subjects of English, maths, science, humanities and languages.