Primary School Teachers Unprepared For Language Teaching: According to new primary school research, almost a quarter of primary schools in England have no staff with a language qualification above GCSE level.

The research, published by CfBT Education Trust and The British Council looked at the state of foreign language teaching in 591 primary schools in England between 2013-14. In 23% of school surveyed, the GCSEs were the highest language qualification held by teachers, with only a third having teachers qualified to A-level standard. Just 30% of schools had a teacher with a language degree, a drop of 10% on the same findings the previous year.

Primary School Teachers Unprepared For Language Teaching

Amid concerns that English schools are increasingly falling behind their European counterparts, one teacher stated that it would not be ideal if teachers were only a ‘page or two’ ahead of the children they were teaching. In Europe, some school are now beginning to offer pupils a second foreign language.

As of September, all English schools will be expected to give language lessons to pupils aged between 7 and 11 years of age. According to the research, the vast majority (85%) of primary schools backed the decision to enforce language teaching, with two fifths (42%) saying they already meet the new criteria. However, individual teachers appear less confident. Three quarters felt that the teaching of reading, writing and grammatical understanding would be challenging, with 29% saying that overall they are not confident about teaching language lessons – a rise of 2% on last year.

A third of primary schools (33%) do not have a system in place to monitor or assess student’s progress in foreign languages, and around half (46%) of primary schools do not have contact with language teachers at their local secondary schools. The report described a ‘lack of cohesion right across the system between primary and secondary schools’ – further outlined by the fact that only a tenth (11%) of secondary schools request or receive data on pupil achievement in foreign languages at Key Stage two when the transition between primary and secondary school occurs.

In addition, half of schools are worried about the time pressures associated with introducing languages to the national curriculum – and there is a lack of confidence that there will be sufficient time for the new subjects to be properly integrated and the expectations of a new curriculum met adequately.

The full report is available here.