Latin lessons for state school pupils aged five in language revival bid



Children as young as five will be given Latin lessons as ministers attempt to revive the language in primary and secondary schools.

Condemning the long-term ‘decimation’ of Latin in state schools, Education Minister Nick Gibb swept away Labour guidance which effectively restricted primaries to teaching modern languages.



He also revealed teenagers taking a GCSE in Latin or Greek will be able to count the qualification towards the new English Baccalaureate, the proposed benchmark for secondary school achievement.



Revival: Children as young as five will be given Latin lessons as the coalition government attempts to reinstate the language in primary and secondary schools

It will be awarded to youngsters gaining at least a C at GCSE in English, maths, a science, a humanities subject and a language.

GCSE Latin and GCSE Ancient Greek will count towards the language component, Mr Gibb said.

Ministers hope that giving schools more freedom over what languages they teach will spark a resurgence of the classics in state schools.

Addressing a conference in London, Mr Gibb said that learning Latin could help children's general language skills, boosting their confidence to move onto other languages.

But he said the subject had been 'squeezed out' by a curriculum 'straitjacket' which dictated to teachers what they must cover.

Mr Gibb also condemned Latin detractors who claim state school pupils should not be studying the subject because it is 'elitist'.

Addressing an event staged by the Politeia think-tank, Mr Gibb said: 'Latin gives us not just the skills to learn, not just Romance languages like Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and French, but the aptitude and confidence to learn new tongues beyond Western Europe.

'So when people urge schools to teach a modern language rather than Latin, there need not be an either-or.



'Learning an ancient language equips you to learn a modern language and vice versa. And learning any language, new or old, helps give young people the academic hunger, thirst and confidence to keep on exploring the world around them.

'That’s what makes the decline in the studying of languages at GCSE-level such a tragedy.'

Latin for five-year-olds: Ministers hope that giving schools more freedom over what languages they teach will spark a resurgence of the classics

Mr Gibb said the number of schools teaching Latin was 'pitifully small'.

A few primaries still teach Latin but campaigners say that Labour's insistence that schools concentrate on modern foreign languages such as French, Spanish and German deterred many from offering the subject.

Just 9,246 teenagers took a GCSE in Latin last year - and 70 per cent of them attended private schools.

But Mr Gibb said: 'Languages are hugely important and under this Government will become more so not less.'

Ministers will shortly launch a review of the National Curriculum which will consider what youngsters should know at each age.

They have already written to primary schools making clear that schools should continue to teach languages if they wish to do so.

They believe that including languages in the English Baccalaureate - which will be used to rank schools in league tables - will give secondaries an incentive to promote language learning in their local primaries, in an attempt to ensure children are up to speed when they arrive.

Ministers believe it is for primary schools to judge whether there is a place for Latin in their own schools, alongside French, German and other modern languages.

A computer-based Latin course backed by Cambridge University is said to have made it easier for schools to offer Latin.

The team behind the project say schools are held back by a lack of access to Latin, rather than a lack of interest in it.

Other initiatives, such as the 'Minimus' Latin textbooks and the Iris project, which has brought ancient languages to inner-city schools, are also said to be boosting take-up.

Mr Gibb added: 'One of the overriding objectives of the Government is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds.



'The fact that the opportunity to learn Latin is so rare in the state sector is one of a range of factors that has led to the width of that gap.



'Spreading these opportunities is part and parcel of closing it and helping to create a more equal society.



'So when people say that Latin is an elitist subject that shouldn’t be taught in the state sector, they are contributing to the widening of that gap and to the very elitism they rail against.'

