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Increased funding announced for language learning in schools

Schools will be urged to work together more closely to better support pupils continuing language learning as they move from primary to secondary, Schools Minister Jim Knight said today. His call comes alongside the announcement of a £53million investment in language teaching over the next year.

Today’s record level of funding will drive forward the latest phase in the programme of action to revolutionise language learning which came out of Lord Dearing’s review published in March 2007.

It includes £35 million for primary schools ahead of languages becoming a compulsory part of the curriculum for 7-11 year olds in 2010, as well as increased training and support for secondary teachers.

The funding includes:

• £35 million in 2008/09 to transform language teaching in primary schools, including investment in specialist teachers, training and teaching resources as well as joint working between schools to support transition between primary and secondary level. This represents an increase of £5million on funding levels for this year
  
  To see how CILT has been working with primary languages, visit our Primary webpages, the NACELL website and the Primary Languages website.
  
  
• More than £3 million over three years to support partnership working between Higher Education Institutions and schools. Through initiatives such as intensive languages tuition and using university level languages students as ambassadors the project’s aim is to support language uptake at Key Stage 4
  
  Find out more about Routes Into Languages
  
  
• £3 million for the first year of a three year development programme to create an innovative online language resource for secondary pupils (the Open School for languages)
  
  
• More than £1million for networks of secondary schools to share best teaching and learning practices at Key Stage 3
  
  Visit CILT’s Key Stage 3 webpages and find out more about its Strategic Languages Networks
  
  
• A £2 million communications campaign to promote the benefits of learning languages to pupils, teachers and parents.
  
  Visit our Languages Work website and download our Talking Prospects leaflet for parents and teachers

Responding to today’s announcement, Isabella Moore, Chief Executive of CILT said:

‘Continued funding of primary languages will support the fantastic progress being made in primary schools across the country and we are hugely pleased that the issue of transition, a concern for so many teachers, is being addressed.

The targeted funding for the secondary sector and links with higher education will help ensure future sustainability and underlines the need to send strong messages about the benefits of language skills to young people and their parents.

We look forward to contributing further to the Routes into Languages initiative, to supporting schools and local authorities introducing primary languages and to the continued development and delivery of localised services such as the KS3 Strategic Learning Networks.’

CILT will be actively involved in supporting government activity to boost language learning in England through the development of existing products and services, delivered locally and on a national level. We look forward to the opportunities offered by this new funding and the potential involvement in exciting new initiatives to engage young people in language learning. As work progresses we will keep you up to date on how you can either benefit or contribute to these projects.

Read the DCSF press release