Tag Archives: modern foreign languages

What about the languages?

 

With the referendum already having had a number of impacts on the value of the pound and the political stability of the UK, what impact will it have on the education of future generations and, more specifically, regarding language education?

It seems that people forget what a huge influence the European Union has had on our workers’ rights and the contribution towards farmers, the NHS, Cornwall… this list could go on forever, but has anyone really thought about the ability for our children to learn languages? Language education is already at risk due to Nicky Morgan and the rest of the department for education, with the majority of language teachers having to teach at least two languages, with French being the main language and a number of schools not offering German or Spanish, despite Spanish growing in popularity.

According to the European Commission, the Barcelona European Council called for action “to improve the mastery of basic skills, in particular by teaching at least two foreign languages from a very early age”, yet 14% of young people still lack basic knowledge of even one language and, with A Levels of languages rapidly decreasing, it wouldn’t be a surprise if a large portion of the 14% was from the UK.  Every year the news reports that the number of modern foreign languages is falling and does leaving the EU mean that this shall continue? Although the English Baccalaureate is going to be made compulsory as of September, what will leaving the EU mean for A Level or University uptake?

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 3 Comments

Opinion: Answers on no more than 2 sides of A4 (part 2)

In my earlier article, I looked at the new proposals for dealing with school exclusions set out in The Importance of Teaching schools White Paper, published by the government last month. Two other areas of concern in Paper, which otherwise contains some good ideas, relates to the curriculum changes and the measurement of schools’ performance.

Curriculum – the broad academic core

The White Paper gives some welcome attention to the breadth of the curriculum students study. Although the freedoms proposed for schools elsewhere in the paper allow them to adopt their own route, it is proposed to encourage the …

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | 3 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Peter Black
    @Simon McGrath nobody on the doorstep thought that our budget deal was'keeping Labour in power'. It did not come up at all. Remember that, unlike Wimbledon, Wal...
  • Nigel Quinton
    @Paul why do you say this will be a return to two party politics? Even if Reform diminish, surely Labour and Tory are now shadows of their former selves? LibDem...
  • Chris Cory
    @Jana. It would seem that all you require of a democracy is a vote every 5 years and that any result it throws up is fine and shows our democracy is in good ...
  • Jana
    @Chris Cory “ we have a crisis of democracy which is manifesting itself in increasing support for extremists on the left and right” No, it is not a cris...
  • Matt (Bristol)
    I wasn't sure whether I agreed with Matthew, but I damn well agree with Chris Cory....