The Department for Education has backed a deployment of specially trained undergraduate MFL mentors in secondary schools designed to boost the number of pupils studying languages at GCSE.

The Language Horizons Mentoring Scheme, which is led by Cardiff University’s School of Modern Languages, has been awarded a £430,000 grant from the DfE and involves degree students are working with Year 8 and 9 students either through face-to-face or digital sessions.

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The project has already been rolled out in Wales and aims to engage around 40 schools, 80 mentors and 1,000 students in these regions. Student mentors from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University are working with schools from South Yorkshire, while undergraduate volunteers from Warwick University and Coventry University are mentoring at schools in the West Midlands as part of phase one.

If successful, the next phase will involve around 130 schools, 250 mentors and 6,000 pupils. with a potential £1.5 million extra pot of funding from the DfE. 

During a recent pilot in ten schools in South Yorkshire, 53 per cent of students who took part went on to choose a modern foreign language at GCSE, and most said it “changed the way they think about languages in relation to their future lives” say scheme organisers.

School standards minister Nick Gibb said: “We’ve taken steps to halt the decline in language uptake since languages became optional at GCSE in 2004. The proportion of children taking a language at GCSE increased from 40 per cent in 2010 to 46 per cent in 2018 and we are determined to see this rise further.”

Academic lead Claire Gorrara said: “At a time when the uptake of language qualifications is worryingly low, it is vital that universities and schools work together to reverse this trend.”