The Scottish government’s policy is that children should start learning their first additional language when they start school in P1 and then start learning another language from P5. The government says “language learning is an entitlement for all from P1 to S3”.

This is known as the 1+2 languages policy, since the expectation is that pupils will learn two languages, as well as their mother tongue.

But to what extent is this long-established policy - which the government originally pledged to fully implement by the beginning of this school year (August 2021) - a reality in Scottish schools?

To mark Languages Week Scotland 2022, we take a look at the data.

A survey of Scottish councils carried out in May 2019 found that:

• 88% of primaries were delivering a foreign language to pupils from P1 onwards.
• 70% of secondaries were delivering a foreign language throughout S1 to S3.
• 47% of primaries were delivering a second foreign language by P5.
• 53% of primary schools not providing the full second language entitlement said it was because of “competing priorities”.
• 37% of secondaries not providing the full second language entitlement said it was because of “timetabling”.

Scottish Qualifications Authority data shows that entries for Higher French dropped by 26 per cent between 2001 and 2021. Over the same period, entries for Higher German dropped by 65 per cent. However, entries for Higher Spanish have more than trebled over the past two decades.

Overall, therefore, entries for the three most popular languages at Higher have gone from 7,170 in 2001 to 6,909 in 2021 - a drop of 261 entries, or 4 per cent.

Last year there were just 161 fewer entries for Higher Spanish than for Higher French; in 2001 the gap between the two Higher subjects in terms of entries was 3,466.

Could it be, therefore, that soon Spanish will become the most popular language at Higher?