PRIMARY schools in Southampton are lagging way behind in the push to teach foreign languages, new figures show.
A Government survey reveals the city had the second worst record in the country for giving primary pupils the chance to learn a second language in class time.
While some schools are trying to reflect the changing face of Southampton by offering Bengali or Polish alongside traditional French and German, 80 per cent denied 11-year-olds the chance to learn a language.
The city's dire teaching rate was the second lowest in the country, above only Portsmouth, which languished at 16.6 per cent.
The area covered by Hampshire County Council performed better, with nearly three-quarters of primary schools providing foreign language tuition when the data was collected in autumn last year. But that was still below the national average of 81 per cent.
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