Cornish: Can an Indigenous Language Become a Fixture in the Local Primary Curriculum?

Abstract

The Cornish language has been informally taught at early years and primary level; however, it continues to occupy a limited position within compulsory educational settings. The principal studies regarding Cornish within education are (MacKinnon, K. (2000). Cornish at its millennium: An independent academic study on Cornish. Government Office for the South-West.) and (Sayers, D., Davies-Deacon, M., & Croome, S. (2018). The Cornish language in education in the UK. European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning.). Recently, new programmes have been developed which aim to increase the presence of Cornish within early years and primary schools in Cornwall. In this paper I, an academic who is firmly rooted within the Cornish language community, intend to offer both the past and present stories of the teaching of Cornish within these settings: initiatives created by early years providers, and the new primary school programme developed by the company Golden Tree, ‘Go Cornish Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards,’ which offer language and cultural support for schools to implement their own teaching sessions and place the Cornish language at the heart of whole school policies; as well as discussing issues which are being, and remain to be, addressed. Key to the provision of the language in these setting are stories: the story of a language marginalised from mainstream education, the journeys of those determined to develop language education, and how storytelling is key to teaching Cornish at these levels. Early indications show the growing interest of primary schools to include Cornish within their provision and there is a growing hope that any success of the ‘Go Cornish’ primary school initiative be used in future discussions with Cornwall Council regarding greater inclusion of Cornish with their overall educational policies.