Who Would Want To Teach These Vital Subjects?

Sixth formers missing out on French and Spanish.

Shortage of trained teachers in deprived communities locks many pupils out of key subjects, poll finds

Natasha Leak

Sixth formers are missing out on French and Spanish at A-level because there are not enough teachers, a poll has revealed.

The survey, by the education charity Teach First, found that nearly a quarter of schools in the poorest areas of Britain do not offer French A-level, while 17 per cent do not offer Spanish or music.

The charity said a shortage of trained teachers has locked pupils out of many opportunities.

Teacher vacancies in England have been at their highest level since records began, according to the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

The findings followed union claims that the Government remains on track to miss its manifesto commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers, funded by a VAT raid on private schools.

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The poll also found almost a third of schools in deprived communities do not offer computer science A-level because of a lack of teachers trained in the subject. DT

Blogger: Languages are, without the slightest whisper of doubt, the hardest subject to teach on the curriculum. I taught exam classes in: French, RS, European Studies and Spanish 'A' Level - so I have a fair bit of experience.

In a number of subject areas, dumbing down has made exam passes substantially easier than before - sadly, these attempts have also been made in languages where dumbing down wrecks the subject and can do significant damage but this was not followed through for obvious reasons.

Languages demand more effort from pupils and consequently are often resented. Teaching pupils something which they instantly suss as being demanding means that huge numbers write off French, German and Spanish in their first encounters.

Ironically, pushing pupils to work harder with punishments is considered unacceptable by school leaderships. Consequently, teachers have to drive themselves ever harder to achieve any modicum of success.

I know this to be true as I have taught in both sectors of education. (The independent school allowed me to succeed without wrecking my sanity!)

Comps? Too hard for staff; too demanding; not allowed to make pupils do what is required for success - it is a proper cow of a job in state schools.

You can still recruit language teachers but, sadly, you won't be able to keep many!