Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to promote the teaching of modern languages in schools in England.

There are a number of initiatives in place to promote the teaching of modern languages in schools in England. The reformed national curriculum makes it compulsory for pupils in maintained schools to be taught a foreign language in key stage 2 and 3, and academies are required by their funding agents to deliver a broad and balanced curriculum. The government has introduced the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure, which includes languages and the proportion of GCSE entries from pupils in state-funded schools in a modern foreign language (MFL) has increased from 40% in 2010 to 46% in 2018.

Recruiting MFL teachers is a priority. Generous financial incentives are offered for languages teaching, including scholarships in modern foreign languages worth £28,000, and tax-free bursaries, typically worth up to £26,000. We are also working in partnership with Spain’s Ministry of Education and Vocational Training to deliver Spain’s Visiting Teachers programme. This will provide schools with access to a pool of qualified teachers from Spain who are able to teach MFL. For the 2019/20 academic year, the programme will be open to secondary schools and primary schools.

The Teacher Subject Specialism Training programme aims to improve the subject knowledge of non-specialist teachers and returning teachers in MFL and to increase the number of hours taught.

We have also recently launched the new Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which will attract new teachers to all subjects, including MFLs.

A £4.8 million MFL Pedagogy Pilot commenced in December 2018. It is managed by the newly appointed MFL Centre for Excellence and is run through 9 school-led hubs, to improve uptake and attainment in languages at key stages 3 and 4. We have also launched a pilot project in MFL undergraduate mentoring for secondary school pupils to drive up participation in the subject, specifically targeting areas of high disadvantage to extend access to languages for all pupils.