Written question asked by Lord Tyrie (Non-affiliated) on Wednesday, 21 May 2025, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 5 June 2025. It was answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern (Labour) on Friday, 13 June 2025 on behalf of the Department for Education.

Languages: GCSE

Question: To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of pupils entered for a GCSE in the current year are taking (1) French, (2) Spanish, (3) German and (4) other foreign languages; and what proportion took those exams in 2010, 2015 and 2020.

Answer

The requested information is shown in the following table. Data relating to 2025 will be published in autumn 2025.

Percentage of pupils entering modern language GCSEs at the end of key stage 4

To note:

The data covers all schools in England.
Percentages represent the percentage of pupils at the end of key stage 4 who entered each GCSE subject.
'Z' denotes that no data was available.
'Other Modern Languages' is not comparable over time. The languages included in 'Other Modern Languages' have changed since 2009/10. If a modern language was reported as the individual subject for the academic year, then it will not have been included in the Other Modern Languages group. For example, Italian was included in Other Modern Languages in 2019/20, but was reported as a separate subject in 2009/10 and 2014/15.
Data is revised.

Secondary information