The Scottish Government want to make Scotland as successful as possible and see language capability as an important part of this success. This means that it is important that young people are attracted to learning languages, and that they become confident and competent linguists, well equipped with the skills and capacities needed in the new Europe and the 21st century marketplace.

To achieve this SG have made an ambitious languages commitment “to introduce a norm for language learning based on the European Union 1+2 model – to create the conditions in which every child will learn two languages in addition to their mother tongue.”

The plan is to introduce this new model of language acquisition for Scotland over the course of two Parliaments or by 2020 and they are working in partnership with Local Authorities and stakeholders to enable learning of the first additional language to start from Primary One with a second additional language to be offered by all schools from Primary Five. This is a long term and very ambitious policy.

Further information on this policy can be found here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Education/Schools/curriculum/LanguageLearning

The purpose of this focus group was to explore parents’ current awareness and views on the 1 + 2 language approach. A summary of the event and findings are available here: Focus Group 8 May 2014 Musselburgh CS comments.