The government has named the 15 schools in England it has chosen to become hubs as part of its £14.9 million scheme aimed at boosting language take-up among pupils.
The schools will lead on encouraging more pupils to study languages from primary school through to GCSE over the next three years, building on the modern foreign language hub pilot.
The programme starts from this month, and aims to improve languages offers in schools and make sure that all students aged 14-18 get the opportunity to study them through to key stage 5.
Language hubs were part of a commitment made in the government“s Schools White Paper, published last year, designed to support the Department for Education’s ambition to get 90 per cent of Year 10s studying core academic subjects for the English Baccalaureate by 2025.
The first language hub schools
The 15 schools selected in the initial round of recruitment are:
- Cardinal Hume Catholic School - North East
- Littleover Community School - East Midlands
- The Priory Academy - East Midlands
- Anglo European School - East of England
- Ada Lovelace CofE High School - London
- Sidney Stringer Academy and Lawrence Sheriff School (co-lead partnership) - West Midlands
- Painsley Catholic College and The Arthur Terry School (co-lead partnership) - West Midlands
- Tudor Grange Academy - West Midlands
- Cheadle Hulme High School - North West
- Keswick School - North West
- The Blue Coat School - North West
- Dartford Grammar School and The Skinners’ Kent Academy (co-lead partnership) - South East
- Hove Park School - South East
- Admiral Lord Nelson School - South East
- Pate’s Grammar School and The Cotswold School (co-lead partnership) - South West
A further 10 schools are set to be selected in a second recruitment round in January. The programme will be managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE).
It will include a German Promotion Project to increase the profile of studying German. This project is worth £400,000 and will be led by the Goethe-Institut.
Modern foreign languages are among the subjects finding it most difficult to recruit teachers amid a widespread teacher shortage in England, with numbers of trainees recruited this year expected to be 20 per cent or more below the DfE targets set in 2022-23.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said that having confidence in a second language put students at a “huge advantage in life”, adding that the programme will “crucially equip teachers with the necessary training and knowledge to support pupils looking to do so”.
