Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of figures showing that 85 per cent of modern foreign language assistants in British schools are non-UK EU nationals, what steps they are taking to continue to attract them and to safeguard their residency status following the withdrawal of the UK from the EU.
Answered by Lord Nash
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, has been clear that she wants to protect the status of EU nationals already living here, and the only circumstances in which that would not be possible is if British citizens’ rights in European member states were not protected in return. The Government is considering the options for our future immigration system very carefully. As part of that it is important that we understand the effect on the different sectors of the economy and the labour market, including on modern foreign language teachers and assistants, from any changes that we make.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the outcome of the referendum to withdraw from the EU, whether they have reviewed their target of 90 per cent of pupils entering the EBacc by 2020.
Answered by Lord Nash
We are considering the responses to the consultation on the implementation of the EBacc and will publish the Government response in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in discussions with examination boards about retaining accreditation routes for lesser-taught languages at GCSE and A-level.
Answered by Lord Nash
Government action has resulted in GCSEs and A levels in a range of community languages being continued, to ensure young people can carry on studying a diverse range of foreign languages.
This follows a Government commitment in 2015 to protect a number of language GCSEs and A levels after the exam boards announced that from 2017 they would be withdrawing several courses.
Since then the Government has worked with Ofqual and the exam boards and we have been successful in securing most of the less-taught languages at GCSE and A level for future years. In addition to Chinese, Italian and Russian, the languages now secure are Arabic, Bengali, Biblical Hebrew, Modern Greek, Gujarati, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Panjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish and Urdu.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have made to the Language Trends Survey 2015–16, published by the British Council on 18 April.
Answered by Lord Nash
The Department welcomes the survey; in particular its findings on the steps primary schools are taking to improve the quality of language teaching since it became compulsory in maintained primary schools in September 2014. By introducing the EBacc, we have stopped the decline in modern foreign languages seen in the last decade, where 200,000 fewer GCSE students studied a modern language in 2010 than in 2002.
Last year’s results showed 20% more pupils are taking languages at GCSE than in 2010 while A level entries in modern languages have increased by nearly 4% since 2014.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what policy assumptions have been fed into the teacher supply model to inform the initial teacher training target for teachers of modern foreign languages.
Answered by Lord Nash
The Department for Education published the Teacher Supply Model (TSM) on 14 October 2015. The publications are attached and can also be found online at the following address: www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-supply-model
The underlying assumptions are included in the accompanying User Guide and the model itself.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many additional modern foreign language teachers they estimate will be needed in order to achieve the target of 90 per cent of mainstream pupils achieving the English Baccalaureate by 2020.
Answered by Lord Nash
The proposals in the English Baccalaureate consultation launched on 3 November imply an increase in the numbers of teachers of languages needed. The EBacc-related increase is over and above the additional teachers needed to keep up with the rise in the secondary school pupil population.
We will forecast the demand for additional Modern Foreign Language teachers following the conclusion of the consultation. This will give us a better understanding of how schools plan to respond to the resulting workforce requirements from 2017/18.
The Department does this, in part, by adding policy assumptions into the Teacher Supply Model (TSM), which informs the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) targets each year.
More details as to how the policy assumption process is managed within the TSM itself, along with some previous examples, can be found in both the 2016/17 TSM and the accompanying user guide.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will extend the current additional financial incentives for modern foreign language teachers in secondary schools to language specialists entering the teaching profession in primary schools.
Answered by Lord Nash
Financial incentives for initial teacher training (ITT) are designed to attract applicants to certain subjects. We have increased bursaries for secondary languages ITT trainees for 2016/17 in response to growing demand.
We have no current plans to extend these generous financial incentives for secondary language trainees to primary trainees. Primary ITT courses continue to be popular with applicants, and we are confident that we can recruit enough trainees nationally to meet need at the bursary rates announced for 2016/17.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to reverse the shortfall of 21 per cent in the number of modern foreign language teachers, as calculated by the Department for Education's initial teacher training census for 2014–15.
Answered by Lord Nash
To support recruitment to languages Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in 2016/17, we have increased the bursary rates for postgraduate languages trainees on fee-based courses. Trainees with 2:1 degree classification will now receive £25,000 (up from £20,000 in 2015/16 in 2015/16) and those with a 2:2 will receive £20,000 (up from £15,000 in 2015/16).
We offer potential languages trainees a range of support. The Premier Plus programme is available to candidates wanting to teach languages. This service includes support from a dedicated advisor; access to exclusive events; and regular communications with important news and application hints and tips. Languages candidates are also eligible for the funded School Experience Programme, helping them gain classroom experience to assist with their ITT application. Before they begin their training, languages applicants may benefit from funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses, through which they can improve either their first or their second additional language. Bursary support is also available for applicants undertaking an SKE course.
Furthermore, we want to attract qualified languages teachers who wish to return to the profession. We have recently launched a new pilot programme designed to help schools to attract and support returning teachers; this includes funding for returning language teachers. We will be undertaking a national marketing campaign to support this initiative.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of recording and monitoring the number of teachers leaving the profession centrally alongside the number of new recruits already collected on the planning of teacher supply in modern foreign languages; and whether they plan to begin recording and monitoring those figures.
Answered by Lord Nash
The numbers of teachers leaving and joining the profession in each secondary subject, including Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), are already factors in the department’s modelling of future demand for secondary teachers.
The department uses the Teacher Supply Model (TSM) to estimate the demand for the number of qualified teachers within state-funded schools in England each year using a range of assumptions, including projections for the numbers of pupils in schools and the number of teachers expected to leave the sector.
To estimate the demand for teachers in specific secondary subjects, the TSM uses the latest data on secondary subject take-up, defined by hours taught, and projected pupil numbers at Key Stages 3 to 5. It also takes into account the different age and gender demographics of current teachers for the different secondary subjects, plus the historical rates at which teachers left the profession by subject group. For modelling purposes, the leaver rates are estimated separately by age and gender groups, and in each case vary by groups of subjects.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of how many teachers qualified to teach Modern Languages leave the profession within the first three years post-qualification.
Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The information requested is not available.