CREATING three bilingual French-English primary schools could lead to staff redundancies and take funding away from children with the highest levels of need, the Education Minister has said.
Responding to Deputy Philip Bailhache’s proposition – to be debated on Tuesday 10 September – Education Minister Rob Ward said the proposal to convert three primary schools to teach the curriculum in French as well as English could cost more than £2 million to implement and was not the best way of providing high-quality French teaching.
“As Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, I remain committed to our declared priorities of inclusion, equal opportunities and the promotion of equity for all our learners. This proposition by its design is neither inclusive nor accessible to all children and young people on the Island,” Deputy Ward said.
Deputy Bailhache argued that bilingual schools could provide “centres of excellence radiating linguistic skills outwards and enhancing the teaching of languages throughout the Island’s primary schools” but the minister has responded by saying that, unless additional funding is provided centrally, the cost of the initiative would detract from the twin priorities of special educational needs and inclusion.
Deputy Ward said that the conversion of three schools to bilingual teaching raised a number of practical issues, impacting on the department’s policy on catchment areas which seeks to provide places in schools close to the homes of students.
It also created staffing and resourcing costs which had not been included in the current Government Plan, now called the Budget. Because the Island did not currently have staff trained to teach the curriculum bilingually, it would be necessary either to employ additional teachers who were qualified for the task, or to retrain existing staff with additional staff taken on to cover them. Estimates for the cost began at £468,000 starting with reception classes, rising to £2.17m throughout the school.
A third approach, the minister noted, would be progressively to make three English-speaking classroom teachers redundant each year, and to replace them with French-trained colleagues.
“This also has a financial cost which can be calculated if requested,” the minister added.
In his response, lodged yesterday, Deputy Ward noted that a 2016 request from the Council of Ministers that Education investigate different approaches to French teaching had resulted in two initiatives: an expansion of compulsory French teaching in primary schools from years five and six to years three to six; and an intensive programme, run initially as a pilot, which had been expanded to embrace 80% of government primary schools, leading to what was described as “a secure grasp of French” at the end of year six by an average of 75% of pupils.
“Since the roll-out of the 2020 launch, pupils have progressed to current Years 7 to 9 in their secondary schools. It is therefore too early to measure the impact of the programme on GCSE or A-level uptake or attainment.
“However, what the end of Year 6 scores suggest is that pupils are confident in their abilities as linguists, and that they enjoy learning the language. As the Deputy acknowledges in this proposal, it takes time for education initiatives to bear fruit, but if [French] Eisteddfod entries are any indication there is evidence for optimism,” the minister said.
