Colin Harding and Robin Wallis, with additional contributions by Bulletin editors
Spanish is now, for the first time ever, the most popular foreign language in English schools at both GCSE and A level (public exams usually taken at ages 16 and 18 respectively).
GCSE results for England, released on 21 August 2025, showed that entries for Spanish GCSE overtook those for French. Spanish has moved up from 13th to 12th in the overall list of subjects this year. French now stands at 14th.
The number of entries for Spanish GCSE in 2025 rose more than 2% to 130,589 (127,832 in 2024). Enrolment for French GCSE came in at 126,980, down from 129,980 in 2024, a decrease of 1.6%. German entries, at 32,297, were down 7% from 2024’s figure of 34,708. The number of entrants for other modern languages GCSEs showed a small increase, from 41,475 to 42,113.
A-level examination results, published on 14 August, likewise showed a small increase in the number of Spanish candidates, from 8,240 in 2024 to 8,330 this year. A-level entries in French numbered 6,860, down from 7,540 in 2024. Just 2,220 took the German A-level exams, compared with 2,430 in 2024.
The ‘other modern languages’ category showed an increase in the number of A-level students this year, rising from 6,430 in 2024 to 6,670 – attributed by some to the number of ‘heritage speakers’ enrolling, i.e. students who have grown up speaking a language other than English in their home and/or community. These languages include Chinese, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Gujarati, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Turkish and Urdu.
These trends have been even more pronounced in other parts of the UK: in Scotland, Spanish entries surpassed French at Higher level for the first time in 2023, and at Advanced Higher level in 2024, while Spanish surpassed French as the most popular GCSE modern language in Northern Ireland as early as 2021. French has since been pushed out of second place by Irish at both GCSE and A-level.
“Spanish isn’t just popular because of Spain’s prominence as a holiday destination,” remarks one UK Head of MFL. “It’s often perceived as being easier than French, especially in terms of spelling, accents and pronunciation.” Spanish and English verb tenses correlate more closely, and the path to learning higher-register, more abstract vocabulary in Spanish is eased by the high ratio of cognates, i.e. words that read directly across from one language to another, eg democracia, participación, etc.
Another factor that works in favour of Spanish is the ‘cool’ image of the language (and those who speak it) in popular culture – whether in Netflix dramas or on stage at the Grammy Latino awards. In the words of Sixth Form student Olivia Giofreddo, in her entry in this year’s BAS/University of Glasgow Essay Competition, “las redes sociales han redefinido el éxito de la música hispánica en el mundo” (social media has supercharged a boom in Hispanic music across the world). And where the music and culture go, there too goes the language.
It’s not all good news for languages in schools, however – even for Spanish. A recent report by the Higher Education Policy Institute shows that just 3% of A-levels taken in the UK in 2024 were in modern and classical languages.
The requirement to study a language at GCSE was dropped by the Labour government from 2004, resulting in the number of students taking language A-levels declining from about 500,000 to 300,000. The reasons most commonly given by schools are lack of demand and a shortage of qualified teachers.
The trend away from languages is more pronounced in the state sector. One third of state Sixth Forms in England do not have a single pupil studying Spanish, French or German, according to data from A-level exams last year quoted in the Sunday Times. In some areas, eg the West Midlands, the figure is 47%. By contrast, only 17% of private schools had no pupils studying French, Spanish or German at A-level last year.
While hispanists have grounds to celebrate the sustained interest in their subject, no one can feel at ease with the lack of opportunity for language study in such a high proportion of UK schools.
This Bulletin is of course sustained by the enthusiasm of students and others for the wonders of the Spanish-speaking world. Over the past 12 months it has maintained an annual growth in readership of roughly 25% year on year – just under half of those readers in the UK, the rest in 144 other countries around the world.
As John Bunyan (almost) said: Who so beset us round with dismal stories, do but themselves confound – Spanish’s strength the more is.
Bulletin of Advanced Spanish 