Update. Following the posting below, CILT has announced that HMI will now discuss with schools that have not yet started languages what the "main deterrents" are. HMI also said at the conference that, following "a strong case" within Ofsted, the letter to the school published on the Ofsted website following an inspection did not give an overall grading, and that the inspection would take account of the school's state of development in languages.
This is a step forward. However, languages lessons in the normal run of inspections may still be observed and graded by inspectors who don't know the languages, or indeed any languages, and I share HMI's concern that this may lead to data that is not, in Ofsted terms, "secure". Ths issue of inspecting a subject that is not part of the National Curriculum, but which is still fudged as an "entitlement" has not been fully resolved, and should be.
An interesting revelation from HMI at last week's CILT briefing conference for primary languages consultants - if you tell HMI's administrative assistant that you're not doing languages yet, Ofsted won't come. HMI told the conference that "it would be a waste of resources" to inspect what wasn't there, and that roughly a quarter of schools had not started doing languages - "or said they hadn't. My administrative assistant can't ask, Are you sure?"
As over 90 per cent of schools have started offering languages, there is something of a gap between reality and inspection. Part of the problem is that the inspection is rigorous, and some schools are frightened of it if they've just started. One LEA consultant told me that she advised schools to say they hadn't started yet, even if they had, because of one such unfavourable report. This is clearly wrong. But so is talking about an "entitlement" to a subject that is not compulsory. The government has fudged the issue hugely by delaying the introduction of primary languages until 2011, while pretending that there is an "entitlement" - which in plain English is an enforceable legal right - next year. The truth is that there is no entitlement without title, and that the government has placed local authorities and HMI in an invidious position. Such is truth under New Labour.