ChalkFace has been writing a series of articles on the decline of the study of foreign languages in senior secondary school. There have been many reasons discussed for the decline, so it was with interest that we noticed this article discussing this very issue.
French and German GCSE exams will be marked less severely from 2020 in England, after a review of grading. The grading alterations follow intense pressure from teachers of modern foreign languages, who said it was harder to achieve a top grade in their subjects.
A statistical analysis carried out showed in 2016 French and German were among the five hardest of the 30 main GCSE subjects.
One of the other factors taken into account by Ofqual was whether the perception French and German were graded severely had contributed to the decline in pupils studying for the exams. Their report called for changes in grading and said pupils should have a "reasonable expectation" their GCSE grade in a foreign language would be comparable to their grades in other subjects.
Foreign-language learning is at its lowest level in UK secondary schools since the turn of the millennium, with German and French declining the most.
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