Good news but more action needed
Today’s GCSE news has been greeted with cautious optimism by ALL officers and members. It provides a spark of hope after the disappointing A level languages statistics last week and recent stories in the media that recruiting undergraduates to specialist degrees in languages continues to be a struggle.
More students taking a GCSE in a language must be a cause for celebration after a long period of downward trends. Steven Fawkes, ALL Membership Officer said, “I congratulate all of the students of languages who took their GCSE exams this year and all of the teachers who helped them earn success. Any statistical information about an increasing number of young people succeeding in language learning is welcome and it is to be hoped that this will foster an ongoing interest in languages and internationalism. I’m the light of this year’s success maybe schools which have downgraded the status of languages will reconsider their policies.”
At the same time we need to see these latest figures in context. In a thought-provoking piece for the ‘Speak to the Future’ campaign, Bernardette Holmes, ALL Past President, recognises that the increase is due in good part to the Government’s E-Bacc measure introduced in 2010 but regrets that it’s impact will be weakened in the new policy for accountability measures now proposed. She says, “The EBacc is currently described as only a ‘soft’ accountability measure and is consequently already losing its leverage in the decisions made by school leaders about the shape of the curriculum and the priority given to certain subjects. The status of the EBacc must be unambiguous and strengthened. We can EBacc to the future and make a difference to our national capability in languages, if the policy is behind us. It is now urgent in the context of policy reform to restate unambiguously that the EBacc is a firm national accountability measure and that as many pupils as possible should study a language to GCSE and beyond.”
Meanwhile ALL President Elect, Rachel Hawkes, points out that while entries are up, the number of students achieving the highest grades has fallen and questions why this should be the case. “At first glance, the results look fairly positive,” she says. “In French 70.2% of all grades were A* – C, German was 74.9% and Spanish 72.1%. But we must remember that the cohort of students taking a modern language at GCSE tends still to be skewed towards the top end of the ability range. In English, a subject taken by almost 100% of the cohort, GCSE A* – C% was 63.6%. In light of this, should we not expect rather more of a differential at A*-C for French, German and Spanish, taken by only 44% of the total cohort?
So, is this the start of a new dawn for language learning, as the Government would like to suggest, or rather a one-off that will only be sustained if supported by strong incentives in performance measures and a more even playing field in terms of grades?