Importance of Languages

The latest CBI and Pearson report on 'what employers need from education and skills' has once again shown the importance of languages. The report published today is based on a survey of 542 organisations, who together employ around 1.6 million people:

"Languages will help open up new markets to UK companies
Operating effectively in a global economy relies on the right language skills, but the UK has the worst language proficiency in Europe, according to the Education & Employer Taskforce. An overwhelming 72% of businesses say they value foreign language skills, most importantly for building relations with overseas contacts (39%). The major European languages continue to be the most in demand, but language skills geared towards doing business in China and the Middle East feature prominently:

Just as well you can study the top four and number nine here at Tomlinscote!
Work hard in your MFL lessons - your skills will be appreciated by future employers!

For more information go to the cbi website

To read more on future changes to primary teaching have a look at this article in the Independent:

Compulsory language lessons planned for primary schools

Amongst other things, the article talks about introducing languages as a compulsory subject in primary schools. Of course, our main feeder schools are well prepared, as with a little help from their neighbouring Language College, they have been providing weekly German and/or French lessons to years 3 to 6 for many years now!