Ongoing research commissioned by the Department shows that in 2007, 84 per cent. of primary schools in England taught languages to pupils in Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11). This represented an increase of 14 percentage points since the same survey was carried out in 2006. We do not know how many pupils this represents as not all primary schools teach languages to all year groups in Key Stage 2.
Similar research carried out in 2002 showed that 44 percentage of primary schools were then teaching languages.
(2) how many (a) primary teachers and (b) primary teaching assistants have been given training to teach foreign languages to their pupils since 2005; and if he will make a statement.
The information given in the table shows recruitment to initial teacher training courses in primary modern languages. In total nearly 4,000 trainees have gone through these courses, with more to be trained over the next few years. The Training and Development Agency is also working with teacher training institutions to provide additional routes to boost the primary work force teaching languages. They are also developing a pilot programme of retraining modules for secondary language teachers to support language development in primary schools.
The Government fund the British Council to run the Primary Teacher Project, through which primary teachers undertake a two-week programme of language tuition through a partner institution in Europe, to develop their confidence and linguistic competence. Some 300 teachers went on this programme in 2007-08 and it is planned that around 400 will do so in 2008-09.
Teachers can also be supported through the increased funding we have given through local authorities to support the delivery of primary languages—£32.5 million in 2008-09, up from £27.5 million in 2007-08. Schools can use this for a variety of purposes, including to pay for in-service training for teachers and teaching assistants, or for upskilling primary teachers. CILT, the National Centre for Languages, also runs training courses for local authority staff and schools.
Total number of new entrants ITT subject 2005/06 2006/07 2007/081 Primary—French 370 390 420 Primary—German 80 100 90 Primary—Italian 30 40 40 Primary—Spanish 160 180 170 Primary—Portuguese 10 10 0 Primary—total modern foreign languages 650 710 720 1 Provisional. Notes: 1. Figures for mainstream trainees include Universities and other HE institutions, SCITT and OU, but exclude employment based routes. 2. Figures for 2007/08 are provisional and are subject to change. 3. Figures include trainees who are re-sitting all or part of their ITT programme. 4. Figures trainees on courses of one to five year durations. 5. Figures are individually rounded to the nearest 10 and may not sum. Source: TDA ITT Trainee Number Census
Information on Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) specialisms has recently started to be collected by the Training and Development Agency. The available data indicate that in 2007/08 there were some 40 HLTAs in primary schools specialising in modern foreign languages.
No other information is centrally collected on the training provided to teachers and teaching assistants to teach foreign languages to pupils.