Sheffield Languages

 

The National Languages Strategy, Languages for All, Languages for Life was launched in December 2002. This document sets out the Government’s vision for languages and their importance in the 21st century. It gives a commitment to all pupils in Key Stage 2 to have an opportunity to learn a language. It states, “…by 2010 all primary pupils will have an entitlement to learn a foreign language.”

 

More recently The Languages Review Final Report published by the Department for Children, School & Families (DfCSF) on 12th March 2007 puts forward a recommendation by Lord Dearing that primary languages at Key Stage 2 should become a statutory subject in the national curriculum. A copy of this report can be downloaded from the Teachernet (pdf, 832Kb) website.

 

Currently there is a survey being undertaken by National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) entitled Primary Modern Foreign Languages: Survey of National Implementation of Full Entitlement to Language Learning at Key Stage 2 (2006 – 2009). The findings to date indicate that the most common language taught in primary schools is French (25%), followed by Spanish, German and Italian.

 

 

In Sheffield, the Sheffield City Languages Strategy was published in 2004 and it sought to make a link between language learning and the wider city agenda of regeneration and inclusion. In 2005 two primary language consultants were appointed and following a restructuring in 2007, a school improvement adviser (languages) was appointed.

 

More recently in January 2008, Sheffield became the first city in Europe to have its language policies profiled by a delegation from The Council of Europe. The process is still ongoing and recommendations will be received in September 2008. A ‘City Report’ was compiled and is available on The Council of Europe website.  

 

Between 2005 – 2007 a range of 23 different languages were taught at GCSE across the city including Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Russian and Urdu.