Written question asked by Baroness Coussins (Crossbench), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Hill of Oareford (Conservative) on Monday, 7 February 2011.

Education: Languages

Question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of maintained secondary schools have shortened Key Stage 3 to two years; and what effect that has had on the teaching and learning of modern foreign languages.

Answer: The Language Trends Survey 2010 published by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, in January 2011 showed that 19 per cent of maintained secondary schools in a representative sample had shortened their key stage 3 languages teaching to two years. The Ofsted report Achievement and Challenge, published in January 2011, based on inspection of languages provision in a representative sample of schools, also found that around one in five schools visited had looked to enter year groups early for GCSE, either whole or in part. Ofsted reported that this had had a good effect in some cases, but that sometimes the school’s rationale for this was not clear and could cause students to achieve a lower grade than they would otherwise have done and to lose touch with languages beyond key stage 3.

Secondary information