MFL in schools

WQ.4/2025

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING

BY DEPUTY M. TADIER OF ST. BRELADE

QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 20th JANUARY 2025

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 27th JANUARY 2025

Question

"In relation to the teaching of Modern Foreign Languages ("MFL") in schools, will the Minister –

1. provide the date on which each States provided school ceased to require mainstream students to study MFL at Key Stage 4;
2. explain whether the decision to allow schools to no longer require students to choose an MFL for a GCSE option was subject to a review by the Jersey Curriculum Council and, if so, provide the Minutes and/or details of that review and decision; and if not, state why not; and
3. provide a breakdown of Full Time Employees (FTEs) employed directly by the Education Department as MFL teachers in the four non-fee-paying States secondary schools for each year between 2004 and 2024 inclusive, broken down by school, including which MFL subjects were taught?"

Answer

1. MFL study, French in primary school key stage two and French and other languages in KS3, is a requirement in all Jersey schools as set out in the Jersey Curriculum. The study of an MFL has never been a requirement at KS4 in terms of policy or law. Individual schools have made the decision as to which languages to offer at GCSE and A level year by year, and the decision to make a language option compulsory for every student has been made at a school level. Therefore, there was no specific date by which all States provided schools ceased to require mainstream students to study MFL at Key Stage 4.
2. The requirement to take specific GCSEs or other examination entries is not part of the Jersey Curriculum and is not an action that has been considered by the Jersey Curriculum Council (JCC) to date. Therefore, a review by the JCC has not taken place.

In 2018 Jersey adopted the Jersey 8 measure' in place of the previous 5A* to C including English and Mathematics' GCSE measure. The Jersey 8 measure is used by the Department to measure the breadth of the curriculum offer. It tracks the average examination score at KS4 that their cohorts achieve over each pupil's best 8 subjects at GCSE or in another approved examination course. The Jersey 8 measure must include achievement in English, mathematics and science entries across the school (as a core entitlement) and then includes the wider optional curriculum subjects taken, from languages, arts, humanities and technical and vocational subjects.

It should be noted that any change to the curriculum, in particular to introduce compulsory subject choices, would require a long-term strategy to address staffing, capacity and quality assurance. CYPES officers recommend this would need to be considered over three years. This is because, should a formal change be made to require a compulsory language at GCSE level, this would have significant implications on whole-school timetabling (both at KS3 and KS4) and the range of subjects that a school or college could offer to pupils both at KS4 and KS5.

3. Unfortunately, the central HR register of teachers does not record the subject area or areas that a colleague is employed to teach so there is no central record of this data. Schools have swiftly collated the information they hold in their internal employment records and have spoken to long standing staff where available to provide the response in Table 1 on the following page.

Table 1 – A breakdown of Full Time Employees (FTEs) employed directly by the Education Department as MFL teachers in the four non-fee-paying States secondary schools for each year between 2004 and 2024* inclusive, broken down by school, including which MFL subjects were taught.

*LRS response: During this period of time Le Rocquier has consistently offered French and Spanish in both the KS3 and KS4 curriculum. This has also been consistently staffed by 4 full time specialist MFL teachers and each teacher has taught both French and Spanish each year.

*Each school was able to access different timelines of information from their internal records. In most cases the digital records did not go back before 2010.