Foreign language provision in primary schools is on the increase, but up to a fifth of schools could fail to offer it in time to meet the Government’s target, according to new research by the National Foundation for Educational Research.
According to the target, language lessons should be available for seven to 11-year-olds by 2010, with languages becoming compulsory the following year. NFER found that, in 2008, 92% of primary schools were offering languages in some form – a rise of 22 percentage points from 2006. It also found that the vast majority of primary schools were “making good progress” towards offering the full entitlement. Nevertheless, up to 18% of primary schools will not be able to offer the opportunity to learn a foreign language.
Find out more in the DCSF research report