Headteachers’ leaders have warned that plans to create guidance for schools on teaching modern languages must not set new “demands and expectations” on schools “by the back door.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), has raised concerns following the government’s publication of a new contract looking for experts to produce non-statutory guidance in languages next year.
Contract documents say the Department for Education is looking for a lead drafter and advisory panel members to develop new non-statutory guidance for languages teaching aimed at improving transition between primary and secondary school and boosting uptake at GCSE and beyond.
This plan has been welcomed by a major subject teaching association but headteachers have raised concerns about the school curriculum being centralised and about how the guidance might be interpreted by Ofsted.
The DfE contract tender says the successful bidder will produce a document that “seeks to improve transition between key stage 2 and key stage 3, benchmarking expected attainment levels and assisting, in the longer term, in improving the uptake of languages at GCSE level and beyond”.
It says the non-statutory guidance is due to be published in late 2023.
Mr Barton said: “We remain concerned by the increasing centralisation of the curriculum beyond the National Curriculum, through the growing frequency of non-statutory guidance, such as that being developed for languages education.
“School leaders are best placed to make decisions that relate to curriculum, based on the individual needs of their pupils. New demands and expectations should not be introduced by the back door.”
The government push to improve the uptake of languages at GCSE comes as the latest DfE figures show that 87.6 per cent of pupils who didn’t get EBacc missed it because they did not study a GCSE in languages.
This was up from 87.3 per cent in 2020-21 and 86 per cent in 2018-19.
The EBacc is a school performance measure. A pupil is said to have completed it if they study English language and literature, double science, maths, a humanities subject and a modern foreign language at GCSE.
Falling numbers choosing some GCSE languages prompted warnings from exam expert Professor Alan Smithers that the EBacc is “done for” as an attainment measure.
The government’s plan for new languages teaching guidance has been welcomed by the Association for Language Learning.
Its president, Liz Black, said: “The Association for Language Learning welcomes the proposal to provide guidance on the teaching of languages to primary schools.
“We are also very pleased to read that attention will be paid to the issue of key stage 2 to key stage 3 transition, as well as the amount of curriculum time allocated during the school week.
“We hope it will lead to improvements in the continuity of language teaching across the phases. Investment in high-quality language upskilling for primary teachers, where this is needed, is also vital.”
ASCL’s languages specialist, Suzanne O’Farrell, told Tes that she hoped the government’s work could improve the languages curriculum in primary schools.
She added: “I think the panel should look at KS2 in particular and ensure their objective is that language learning should foster enjoyment of making progress in language learning, enjoyment of intercultural learning through languages, knowledge about language, and appreciation of the interest, importance and connectedness of languages.
However, she raised concerns about plans to benchmark expected attainment levels to allow teachers to “best ascertain and have confidence” that a student has reached different levels of competence within a language.
She said: “We would worry that with the current levels of specialist teachers and resources, this cannot be done effectively at present - we need more teachers, quality CPD for all teachers at KS2, and we would worry that the nature of non-statutory guidance would lead to creeping nationalisation and centralisation of the curriculum.”
Ms O’Farrell also added that ASCL was concerned that the guidance could be used by Ofsted inspectors to judge schools.
The DfE has been approached for a comment.
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