Darren Dhesi

Agreed, I would much rather students' first experience of MFL teaching come from subject specialists.

Absolutely. Had a conversation with a Year 11 at 6th Form open evening last week who would struggle at A-Level, but who is desperate to continue studying Spanish.

Essentially there are no options at all for students like them.

It really is a huge leap from Year 6 to Year 7 isn't it.

Definitely routines for learning around student talk. It was highly purposeful and embedded and expectations of pupils were sky high.

That is a huge advantage and it is tricky when you only see groups for an hour or two at times. That being said, I think there's a lot we can learn from primary colleagues.

I had the privilege of visiting a primary school today. As a secondary teacher, I'm always blown away by the routines, norms and levels of independence our primary colleagues establish with their classes.

Hearing Gianfranco Conti talk about cognitive load in language learning for the first time and how to account for it, was a revelation for me.

Summary:

T&L is hard
One thing at a time
Don't move on till your sure
Don't bewilder your team with a bazillion things

Thanks for this, some really good ideas, particularly about avoiding the "backwash".

With the current difference in levels of challenge between foundation and higher GCSE levels, I feel that meeting the needs of both in mixed-ability classrooms is challenging.

Will be interesting to see if this is the same with the new spec.