Draft Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Second Key Stage) (England) Order 2013
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Barwell, Gavin (Croydon Central) (Con)
† Bebb, Guto (Aberconwy) (Con)
† Flynn, Paul (Newport West) (Lab)
† Fox, Dr Liam (North Somerset) (Con)
† Jones, Graham (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Lewell-Buck, Mrs Emma (South Shields) (Lab)
† Milton, Anne (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)
Morris, David (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
† Sawford, Andy (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
† Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Smith, Mr Andrew (Oxford East) (Lab)
† Stewart, Bob (Beckenham) (Con)
† Truss, Elizabeth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education)
† Wheeler, Heather (South Derbyshire) (Con)
† Wright, David (Telford) (Lab)
† Wright, Simon (Norwich South) (LD)
John-Paul Flaherty, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee
Wednesday 19 June 2013
[Mr Dai Havard in the Chair]
Draft Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Second Key Stage) (England) Order 2013
2.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Second Key Stage) (England) Order 2013.
Mr Havard, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship to discuss the Government’s proposals for the introduction of compulsory foreign language teaching in primary schools in England. Modern foreign languages are currently compulsory only at key stage 3 —that is, for age 11 to 14. In June 2012, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced his intention to make languages compulsory at key stage 2. The report on the consultation on this proposal, published on 16 November last year, showed overwhelming support for such a change—over 90% of respondents agreed.
The teaching of languages in secondary schools has, despite the best efforts of schools and teachers, been in decline for a number of years. The proportion of the cohort entered for at least one modern foreign language GCSE fell from 79% in 2001 to 40% in 2011 following the abolition, in 2004, of the requirement to study a modern foreign language. England was among the lowest performers overall in the National Foundation for Educational Research’s European survey on language competences for 2012, which compared the foreign language skills of secondary school pupils in 14 European countries. All this is despite the fact that more and more children are studying languages at primary school. In a 2012 survey, 97% of primary schools reported that they include foreign languages in their curriculum.
The EBacc performance measure has started to stabilise the situation. The CfBT Education Trust’s survey showed that 40% of state secondary schools had made changes to their languages provision following the introduction of the EBacc and that another 13% planned to do so in the next couple of years. Other evidence shows that the EBacc is starting to make a difference, with an estimated rise of 11 percentage points, to 54%, in the proportion of pupils at key stage 4 in the schools surveyed being entered for a GCSE in 2014, compared with 2010. We must do more, though, to arrest this decline.
There are strong educational and economic reasons for making languages a core part of the primary school curriculum. Previous Government reviews have concluded that there is a sound academic case for making languages a core part of the primary school curriculum, including the reviews conducted in recent years by both the late Lord Dearing and Sir Jim Rose. Evidence also suggests that children are better able to learn the sounds of a
new language and to cope better with listening and reading comprehension when they are younger. Learning languages at an early age has also been shown to help general cognitive development. In 2004, researchers from University college London found that people who learned a second language at a younger age were more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learned later. Other education jurisdictions tend to introduce languages between the ages of seven and 11: in Austria, France, Norway and Spain, for example, pupils will have started to learn a second language by the age of seven. Secondary schools have also told us that the fact that languages are not compulsory at primary level makes it much more difficult for them to build on the languages teaching that is carried out in primary schools.We need to equip our young people with the skills and competencies that will benefit them as individuals and promote our nation’s economic competitiveness. In the CBI education and skills survey of 2012, nearly three quarters of businesses said that they valued foreign language skills among their employees, particularly in helping to build relationships with clients, customers and suppliers. Comparisons of recent national employer skills surveys indicate that, in 2009, 17%, and in 2011, 27%, of vacancies in administrative and clerical roles respectively went unfilled owing to shortages of foreign language skills.
We propose that pupils should learn one language for the four years of key stage 2 to enable them to make significant progress and provide a secure basis on which secondary schools may build. Ofsted’s “Modern languages: achievement and challenge 2007-2010” report, published in 2011, identified the fact that the curriculum in outstanding schools was characterised by the teaching of one main language or possibly two.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab): This is a genuine question for the Minister. Who decides which language is going to be pursued in each school? Is there going to be some consultation with parents or the community about which language is selected?
Elizabeth Truss: I am going to come on to the issue of the list of languages, which we still have not pronounced on and I am not going to pronounce on today. It is a decision for the head teacher of the school, in collaboration with others. Primaries need to collaborate with secondaries in their local area so that, where possible, students are learning the same language at primary level so that they build up a level of fluency which they can then carry on with in secondary school. We are not, however, going to prescribe that from the centre. We want schools to work with other local schools to make sure there is a coherent approach through the curriculum.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): Language skills lead to employment opportunities not necessarily just in this country, but elsewhere in the world. Will further education colleges be the driver of this policy, and will families also have an input? I am keen to know where the Government are going on this.
Elizabeth Truss: In coming up with and discussing the list of languages, we are looking at the most widely spoken languages, those that are useful for business, and those that schools are already teaching where we
have the teaching capability. There are a variety of considerations regarding the languages we set on the list at a national level, and the considerations one would expect a school to take into account in deciding which language to select.Our proposal also echoes the advice of the Rose review, which found that a single-language approach promotes consistency between primary and secondary school learning. It also provides secondary teachers with a clearer picture of children’s prior learning and attainment in order to plan a progression.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab): On page 2 of the order, proposed subsection (4) says:
“In sub-paragraph (ii) of subsection (3)(h) ‘modern foreign language’ means…a modern foreign language specified in an order made by the Secretary of State”—
presumably that is the discussion the Minister is referring to—
“or…if the order provides that any modern foreign language is a modern foreign language for the purposes of this subsection, any modern foreign language.”
That sounds a bit of a foreign language to me. Can the Minister explain what that adds to the order?
Elizabeth Truss: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I think we have made clear in the outline what we are talking about. Furthermore, I should point out that the order is about the concept of making modern foreign languages a core part of the primary curriculum. The discussion about which foreign languages are part of that curriculum is for a later day, not today.
The new curriculum will also help to guide schools away from a multi-language approach which risks only surface learning. For example, studying six languages over four years, as is the practice where a language-awareness or “carousel” approach to language teaching is used, means that pupils will not realistically spend much more than half a year on each. That equates to about 20 weeks of teaching. The single-language model will also allow for much greater focus on the teaching of grammar of foreign languages, equipping pupils to manipulate the language more readily and to reach a level by secondary school where they can talk and write about things that are of greater interest to them, rather than being stuck on a level of language knowledge limited to basic vocabulary and structures such as numbers, colours, pets and so on.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Does the Minister agree that the most futile and ineffective way to teach a language is to teach it through grammar? It is like suggesting that someone should not learn to drive a car until they first learn how to dismantle the engine. The United Kingdom has an atrocious record on teaching languages to fluency, with the exception of Wales, where it can be done. No one who is interested in or knowledgeable about teaching language would dare to try to do it through grammar, which is a major obstacle to fluency, not a pathway.
Elizabeth Truss: Learning the grammar of a language is part and parcel of learning that language. Of course, it is not the only thing that students can do. One of the things that this Government are doing is introducing a spelling, grammar and punctuation test for the first time, so that students learn the language of English
grammar before they learn the grammar of another language. I remember when I was at school, I learned the grammar of foreign languages before I learned the grammar of my own language, and I think that was a problem.The feedback we received on the principle of making languages compulsory at key stage 2 has been very positive, including that received from organisations such as the Association for Language Learning and the National Association of Language Advisors. Respondents to our recent consultation cited children’s enhanced capability to learn languages at earlier ages, and also argued that it would lead to improved attainment and take-up at key stages 3 and 4.
We are also encouraged by the warm response we received to our draft key stage 2 programme of study: 83% of primary schools said they were fairly or very confident about meeting the statutory key stage 2 language requirements from 2014. A very small percentage of respondents opposed the proposal, mainly on the grounds that pupils should focus on mastering literacy and numeracy at primary school. We also launched a consultation last year, to introduce a list of seven languages from which primary schools must select at least one to teach. The responses to that consultation were less positive regarding the benefits of defining a list and the choice of languages selected. The bringing into effect of that list will be the subject of a separate order.
We have consulted specifically on implementation. System leaders—for example, teaching schools and national support schools—will have a key role in the implementation, as will others such as publishers and subject associations. In principle, however, we believe schools are best placed to decide what support they need, rather than adopting a top-down approach from Whitehall. To support the introduction of foreign languages in key stage 2 of the national curriculum, the National College for Teaching and Leadership facilitated an expert group, now working independently, chaired by a leading primary head teacher. The group has been meeting to develop the signposting of high-quality teaching resources to support initial teacher trainers and schools, as they prepare for the introduction of key stage 2 languages. It has provided links to resources, courses, qualifications and people the primary sector could use to support the introduction of key stage 2 from 2014. We will consider the group’s recommendations carefully as we prepare for implementation of the new national curriculum from September 2014.
The availability of staff expertise, including support from secondary schools, will continue to be an important consideration for primary schools in relation to which languages are taught and how that has been organised. This year, graduates holding a first-class degree will be able to apply for a bursary of up to £9,000 if they enter training for the primary phase, and there will be bursaries of up to £20,000 for foreign language graduates who choose the secondary phase. We are also aware of, and very much welcome, the support given by the cultural institutes of foreign embassies—several of which have input into the work of the expert group—for the teaching of foreign languages in our schools.
Additionally, in March, a new primary French project partnership was launched by the Institut Français, the Association for Language Learning, and Network for Languages. Those organisations have come together
with the purpose of supporting primary schools wishing to teach French as part of the new statutory curriculum from September 2014. That is a hugely significant and beneficial step that has attracted, and will attract, widespread support from the teaching profession and employers. I believe the reforms we are making will be crucial in helping to improve the standard of languages teaching in England. I therefore commend the order to the Committee.The Chair: Before we begin the debate, let us be clear about what we are discussing, to contextualise things. The list of languages and so on is not part of the order. However, there are references to it in some of the supplementary papers, and I am quite happy for people to discuss these matters in context. It is not, however, the main burden of today’s discussion and I will be looking to Committee members to take that properly into account in any remarks they make. If things become tangential, I will not look upon that too well. Having said all of that, I am sure you can moderate your remarks.
2.45 pm
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab): We very much support the introduction of teaching foreign languages at key stage 2. As academics at the university of Bristol explained in their consultation response:
“Languages are vital to the social and economic well-being of the country”.
Back in 2009, a survey for the CBI, to which the Minister referred, found that a lack of language skills was the skills gap that employers were most concerned about.
In acknowledgment of that fact, the previous Government planned to introduce foreign languages at key stage 2 through the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010. It was a source of great regret to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who cannot be here today, that unfortunately, Conservative Front Benchers blocked that legislation in the wash-up prior to the general election. As a result, we have had to wait a further three years for the same policy to be introduced. Learning a language will not now be compulsory until September 2014, whereas the provision could have been introduced in 2011. Thousands of children would already be enjoying the opportunity to learn a language if the Government had not dragged their feet. It was a pointless waste of time. Ministers should explain why this measure has been so delayed, and not pretend that this is year zero and they have suddenly come up with these plans as they enter their fourth year in office.
We shall support the order today, but, as was said during the proceedings on this measure in another place, we need to understand more about the Government’s intentions. I want to dwell, briefly—I will be brief in the light of your remarks, Mr Havard—on prescribing which languages can be taught.
As has now become typical of the Secretary of State’s approach, this measure has been put forward in the midst of smoke and mirrors. No one is quite sure how the heavily prescriptive list of languages to which the Minister referred—a prescriptiveness the Secretary of State normally cries foul over—came to exist.
We want the Minister to publish the full consultation report of responses, so that we can learn how consultees assessed the merit of introducing ancient languages such as Latin and ancient Greek, but not commonly used languages such as Hindi, Urdu and Arabic. In the interests of the transparency that we hear a great deal about from this Government but rarely see in practice from the DFES, those full consultation responses should be released—a request under the Freedom of Information Act should not be needed. I look forward to the Minster’s assurance that that will be done.
I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about collaboration. It is not something we hear a great deal about from this Government, but collaboration to ensure that children can continue learning the same language is essential. We are pleased to agree with her on that.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op): My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the importance of collaboration between schools, but there is a clear anomaly in this statutory instrument, in that it applies only to maintained schools. There is therefore a real contradiction in the Government’s approach, which is to allow for freedom of the curriculum in other types of schools, but to be ever more prescriptive in relation to maintained schools. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Lisa Nandy: Very much so. Where something is proven to work, it is important that it be applied to every school, and that we have a level playing field for schools so they operate under the same framework.
Elizabeth Truss: By that, does the hon. Lady mean that languages would be compulsory in the curriculum in all schools under a Labour Government?
Lisa Nandy: Our position is absolutely clear. Where freedoms are proven to work—where autonomy in the classroom is proven to be beneficial to students—they should apply to all schools. Where autonomy is not proven to work, equally, that should apply to all schools. We see no reason to make a distinction based on the structure of the school. As I have explained, we very much support what the Government are trying to do in making foreign languages available at key stage 2, but we think they should be available to all students, independent of the type of school they happen to go to.
Elizabeth Truss: I understood from reading this morning’s newspapers that Labour would make only maths, sciences and English compulsory, and that no other subjects would be compulsory in the national curriculum.
Lisa Nandy: As the Minister is well aware, reading the newspapers does not always give an accurate picture of what is happening. As she also knows, I introduced an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which unfortunately the Government rejected, to make sex and relationship education available to students in all schools. This is another example of something we think essential for children and young people, but which perhaps was not reported in the newspaper she read. I and my Front-Bench colleagues would be happy to have a further debate with her—
The Chair: Another time, thank you very much.
Lisa Nandy: But perhaps not in this Committee, Mr Havard. I can feel the stare.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving us an insight into the Government’s thinking on the language list. Telling this Committee, however, that those are discussions for a later date is simply not good enough. The choice of which languages are on the list is vital. Will she give us some more information on the Government’s thinking on the list, as well as a commitment to publish the consultation responses?
Jim Shannon: The explanatory memorandum says that the choice extends to Mandarin, which is important economically. What language does the hon. Lady feel would be helpful economically: Mandarin, French, Italian or Spanish, for example? What would be the criteria for selection?
Lisa Nandy: I think I alluded to this when I talked about Hindi, Urdu and Arabic. There are languages right across the world that do not appear on this list and that are going to be central to our efforts to grow the UK economy in years to come. Will the Minister provide some assurances and some thinking about that when she responds?
We are also concerned about what resources the Government will provide for the teaching of languages in primary schools. The Minister drew attention to the importance of learning languages at an early age, but the reality is that school budgets are being cut by the largest amount since the 1950s. What resources will primary schools be able to call on to implement this new central Government requirement? Similarly, we would like to know what the strategy is for providing the extra language teachers who will be needed if there is to be one language teacher in every primary school. We already know about the shortage of properly trained teachers we face, and the Secretary of State’s complacency about this crisis has been alarming for teachers and schools around the country. He seems to be unaware of the chaos in teacher training that his policies are storing up. Surely he must agree, and the Minister must agree, that if our children are to be taught foreign languages effectively, their teachers must be properly trained. This is not a gap that can be plugged with more unqualified teachers, of whom there are already too many.
Further to that point, how do the Government intend to acknowledge the recent Ofsted report which recommended that we need increased liaison between primary and secondary schools to ensure continuity and coherence in foreign language education? The Minister talked about the importance of collaboration: how will she ensure that that happens?
“Learning a foreign language, and the culture that goes with it, is one of the most useful things we can do to broaden the empathy and imaginative sympathy and cultural outlook of children.”
On the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Corby asked, will academies and free schools also be required to teach foreign languages at key stage 2? I would be grateful if the Minister addressed that, given the concern expressed by Committee members.
A recent Ofsted report, which I think the Minister also referred to, indicated that a great deal of progress had been made under the previous Government on the
provision of foreign languages in schools. Will she confirm that there will be an emphasis on teaching young children to enjoy learning a foreign language, so that they are more likely to want to continue with it later in life? Will there be an emphasis on being confident to speak and listen in another language, and not just on rote learning? The previous Schools Minister is said to have reacted to this suggestion at a meeting with the learned society representing language educators by saying, “That’s all very well, but when will they learn the pluperfect tense?” Have Ministers now woken up to the fact that teaching languages in primary school needs to be rigorous, yes, but also engaging? I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to these questions.2.54 pm
Paul Flynn: I am grateful to the Committee of Selection for kindly doing me the honour of nominating me as a member of this Committee. I read the invitation with great excitement and trepidation, and I hope that I prove worthy of such a remarkable honour.
The order is depressing. The Secretary of State for Education produced a policy in which he was trying to encourage the learning of Latin and ancient history so that our young people can be perfectly equipped to cope with the Roman invasion of 13BC—not a great deal of use for modern technology. I believe we should take the chance to look at the years, possibly centuries, of abject failure of teaching second languages in England.
We have the great advantage of having an ancient language that had fine literature and wonderful poetry for six centuries before the existence of the English language. In Wales they were writing poetry in the second century:
That was written at a time when those who became the speakers of English were running round covered in woad and howling at gods from the tops of mountains. We have a bit of pedigree here. In my constituency, when the Romans arrived they found there were two languages: intra muros, in Caerleon, they spoke mainly Latin; ultra muros—outside the walls—they spoke mainly Welsh. It says something about the resilience of the Welsh language that we hear Welsh, admittedly not an enormous amount on the streets of Newport, but precious little Latin these days. There is a good history that we can point to.
As for the teaching of language, I found this depressing comment in the document:
“Making a foreign language a compulsory subject at key stage 2 will increase the overall amount of languages teaching”.
Yes, it will increase the teaching but it will not increase the speaking or the understanding of the language. We do it so badly. Do we ask our grandchildren when they communicate with us in fluent language, “Do you understand the pluperfect?” If we were teaching another language, would we ask which nouns are feminine or masculine? Nobody ever learnt a language through grammar. They learn it from experience. They learn it from being exposed to the language. There are wonderful techniques now. Possibly the best is the commercial one, Rosetta Stone. People can sit in front of a computer, and there is no grammar and there are no rules laid out.
All they do is absorb the language. Pictures are put up and they have to identify what is happening in the pictures.All this document and the Government’s policy do is carry on failing, carrying on into futility. Many of us will have seen children, particularly in Belgium and France, moving from one television station to the other and understanding the languages perfectly. Some are in French, some in Flemish and some in German. My six granddaughters watch “Peppa Pig”. It is about Dada Moch and Mama Moch and they seem to understand it, regardless of the fact that it is broadcast in Gaelic. Children of that age are hugely receptive to new language tuition.
I am afraid that this document could be a signature document for this present Government, given that it is so deeply futile and pointless.
The Chair: Mr Flynn, I am sure you will provide the appropriate translation and attribution to Hansard before you leave.
2.59 pm
Elizabeth Truss: We have had an interesting debate with some exciting contributions. I am pleased that the sense of the Committee is that people want languages to be a core part of the primary school curriculum. There is a wide understanding that early language learning is good for the brain and for future development. It also helps children to get jobs in later life, so there is a strong argument for making languages compulsory at that age. I am pleased that we have such a wide consensus on that issue.
Various points have been raised about the logic and rationale of the list. First, why have a list? The answer is partly to do with the questions Members have raised about collaboration between schools. Our concern was that if the approach was completely open, it would be harder for schools to come to a common agreement on which language both primary and secondary schools would be doing. We want children to have attained a certain level of fluency in a language by the age of 11. There is nothing more frustrating than starting again from scratch in a different language if they have already built up a capability in another language.
I was also asked how we will engage with schools and encourage them to work together. Our overall approach is to give schools the flexibility to make those judgments. Ofsted inspects schools on their language teaching. We have made it clear that we want fluency to increase so that students carry on in the same language wherever possible, although it will not always be possible between groups of schools.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD): I wonder whether the Minister will give due consideration to part of my area which is covered by middle schools. Will she ensure that any plans she makes take into account that there are sometimes 13 or 14 schools that feed into a middle school, and any number of middle schools that feed into an upper school? We should make sure they are catered for.
Elizabeth Truss: I thank the hon. Lady for that point. I certainly will not forget that in our final deliberations on the list. There is a balance between the length of the list and the desire for collaboration to make matters simpler for schools. That is what we are weighing up, as we did in publishing the initial list.
There are a variety of reasons, as Members have mentioned, why a particular language is on the list: the prevalence of a particular language in business use, teachers’ current ability to teach a particular language, and other considerations. In due course we will publish a final list, giving a full explanation of the rationale behind our choice of languages. However, let us be clear: it is up to schools to choose from those languages, but that does not preclude them from teaching another language in addition. The proposal is not exclusive: it simply says that one of the languages has to be from the list.
Lisa Nandy: Will the Minister commit to publishing the responses to the consultation, so that we have a proper and thorough way to assess the concerns of people outside this place?
Elizabeth Truss: My understanding is that we have published the consultation response. We will discuss the issues in more detail when we put our views on the list, during its resolution. I am gathering from this discussion that there is not much disagreement with the idea of languages being core from the age of seven; the greater area of discussion is the subjects on the list. That is certainly what we found from the consultation, and that is where the list is important.
On speaking, listening and enjoying languages, it is axiomatic that students should enjoy their lessons. That is what good teaching is about. Children are inspired when they have great teaching, and excitement and enjoyment. That is absolutely what we want to achieve. It is not a choice between rigour—making sure that good knowledge, such as sound grammar, is in place—and the ability to speak, listen and really enjoy the language: both those things are possible. It is a question of good teaching.
Overall in the national curriculum, we are giving much more freedom to teachers. Members will notice that our new languages study programme is much shorter than its predecessor. That is not because we want schools simply to teach what is on that list, but because we expect schools to build their own curricula, which bring the subject to life and use the best abilities and resources of teachers, enabling teachers to collaborate with external organisations. I have talked about some of the embassies that are interested in collaborating on the languages they specialise in. All kinds of organisations—such as the Goethe-Institut and the Institut Français, which I mentioned earlier—are also going to be involved. We are opening the curriculum up, so that teachers have access to more resources and do not feel hide-bound by being told that there is a particular way of doing things, but in fact have the freedom to innovate. That is our whole approach. I am a big fan of languages, which are hugely enjoyable to study at school. We want to make language learning even more enjoyable.
Finally, I was asked about implementation, on which I commented in my opening remarks. I mentioned the expert group, chaired by a leading primary head teacher, that is making sure that resources, courses and qualifications
are available to schools. We will say more about that work in due course, but we are working with a number of organisations, so there is not just one supplier of resources; there will be a variety that schools can access.We will also ensure that teaching schools have a strong role in communicating with schools in their local area, so that we share good teaching practice between schools. I agree with the hon. Lady that there is a need for more language teachers, and we are offering bursaries at primary and secondary level to try to get more teachers with such skills. However, it is something of a pipeline issue, as it is with subjects such as physics and maths: the greater the number of students who study languages, the greater the number who emerge at A-level or degree level with the skills to teach languages. We need to start somewhere, and over the past 20-odd years the internet has provided much wider resources, meaning students and schools can access material from all over the world. Language teaching can be a lot richer, and we need to make full use of those resources.
Lisa Nandy: I am grateful to the Minister for those assurances. Does she agree that it is essential that language teachers be qualified to teach such languages?
Elizabeth Truss: I believe that head teachers should decide who has the best capability to teach in their school. That freedom exists in the independent sector, and we have extended it to academies and free schools. Languages are a classic case in point. There may be some instances where a school would rather recruit somebody who is fluent in a language but does not have
a teaching qualification, rather than someone with a teaching qualification who is not fluent in a language. We need to trust head teachers to make the judgment about who teaches in their school, rather than having a national, prescribed system—[ Interruption. ] It seems that Members want to—[ Interruption. ]The Chair: Order. We cannot have four or five conversations happening at once. If Members wish to make interventions they should do so through the proper procedure.
This has been an interesting debate. There is further work to be done on implementation, which the Department is doing. It focuses on two things: making sure we have good language assistants and good teachers in schools who encourage new people to enter language teaching; and making sure our teaching school hubs are there to provide support to other schools, so that we can learn from best practice. In due course, we will announce the list and the rationale for it; but for now, we have covered the issues in today’s debate.
That the Committee has considered the draft Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Second Key Stage) (England) Order 2013.