A Critical Examination of the Beliefs about Learning a Foreign Language at Primary School

1.4.2 Other Findings on Achievement

The 1974 NFER report also commented on the effects of other variables on
achievement such as gender, socio-economic status, parental support and
encouragement and previous learning history. It was found that high
achievement scores tended to coincide with high-status parental occupations.
Girls in both primary and secondary schools consistently scored higher than
boys irrespective of social class. Pupils in small rural schools performed better
than those in larger schools, those in single-sex schools better than those in
mixed schools and pupils in the South of England performed better than those
in the North. Based on their findings Burstall, Jamieson, Cohen and
Hargreaves arrived at the following final conclusion:

"Now that the results of the evaluation are finally available, however, it is hard
to resist the conclusion that the weight of the evidence has combined with the
balance of opinion to tip the scales against a possible expansion of the
teaching of French in primary schools." (BurstaII et al., 1974: 246)

The 'death sentence' on French in the primary school was soon to be passed by
the media at the time. The outcomes of the Pilot Scheme quite clearly
challenged the commonly held assumption that younger is better and had a
major impact on the teaching of French in British primary schools post 1974.
In 1975 national funding for primary foreign languages in England and Wales
was withdrawn, the teaching of French in primary schools went into steady
decline and by the late 1970s it had all but disappeared from the primary school
curriculum.

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