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Solihull School

    • Solihull School participates in Parliamentary discussion on the strategic necessity of languages in education

    Earlier this week, Headmaster Charles Fillingham represented The Heads Conference (HMC) at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Modern Languages at the Houses of Parliament.

    Chaired by Baroness Coussins, the APPG meeting represented a valuable opportunity to consider new research on the importance of languages in education and the UK’s soft power - and therefore the urgent need to revitalise language learning across the UK at a time when it is in decline.

    The group heard from PhD student Megan Bowler (Oriel College, Oxford) a researcher, policy writer and advocate for the study of languages, on the HEPI Report 192 – “The Languages Crisis: Arresting Decline”, Dr Lynton Lees of the British Academy on mapping regional inequality on the availability of language teaching, Ralph Rogers of the British Council on the importance of languages like Mandarin to the UK’s future prosperity, security, and stability and Wendy Ayres-Bennett (University of Cambridge) & Zhu Hua (UCL Institute of Education) on languages within the National Curriculum, including how to create school policies that encourage more young people to study languages.

    Other organisations in attendance included The Chartered Institute of Linguists and leading languages organisations 'Languages for All' and 'World of Languages, Languages of the World (WoLLoW)'.  

    Solihull School fully supports and promotes the importance of the study of languages. Every pupil at Solihull learns a modern foreign language to GCSE level and, in 2025, 100% of students went on to achieve A*-B in French, Spanish and German at A Level. Mr Fillingham, who is also a teacher of French and German, is working with HMC to build upon Solihull School's inaugural Festival of Languages, which took place in March 2025 and involved both state and independent schools from not only across the West Midlands but as far afield as Manchester, London and Bath. The festival returns in spring 2027 and, with Solihull at the fulcrum, there is an intention to expand its scope into an event which inspires young people across the country to learn languages and explore the wide range of global careers that the becoming multilingual can offer.

    Find out more about Solihull's 2025 Festival of Languages here

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