New rules forcing parents to undergo Criminal Records Bureau checks in order to host children on foreign language exchange trips are still causing problems for many schools, despite having been scrapped.

The regulations were part of the government’s new Vetting and Barring Scheme which started in October last year and required anyone coming into contact with under-16s to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

In December, following a review, the government adjusted the scheme so that foreign language exchange visits are not included.

It decided that “exchange visits lasting less than 28 days, where overseas parents accept the responsibility for the selection of the host family, should be regarded as private arrangements and will not require registration.”

Despite the change of heart, some schools are continuing with Criminal Bureau Records checks for foreign language exchange trips. This is incurring extra administrative work as each form has to be signed off on proof of identification such as birth certificates, passports and proof of address.

The process has to be carried out in person, so it is not possible for one family member to take along all the documentation for the rest of the family.

Each and every person in a household aged 16 or over is included, meaning families with older teenagers living at home have to have them CRB-checked too.

Kate Cutler, deputy head of modern foreign languages at John Mason School in Abingdon, organises an annual French exchange trip for three schools in Abingdon.

“It creates a huge amount of extra administrative work for the school,” she said.

“Organising an exchange is quite complicated anyway, and this is just another problem for us to deal with.”

Foreign exchange trips are particularly valuable, Ms Cutler explained, as they offer the opportunity not just for travel and to learn about the history and culture of another country, but also specific benefits from lodging with another family abroad.

“Exchanges are brilliant because it opens their minds to seeing how other people live. They go and stay with a family and French or German is all they hear spoken,” she said.

“It makes them realise that there are all these different cultures and languages. The best way to learn French is to go on a French exchange. They come back into the classroom and are much more in tune with it all. It comes alive for them.

“They look at the French textbook and say ‘I’ve caught that train’, ‘I’ve had one of those coffees with milk’ or ‘I’ve eaten a real French croissant in a real French café and asked for it in French’. It makes a huge difference,” she added.

The new rules come against a backdrop of falling numbers of students choosing to study modern foreign languages and an acute shortage of language graduates.

The National Centre for Languages (CILT), which is fiercely critical of the checks, claims schools in France and Germany are finding it increasingly difficult to find partnership schools in the UK to exchange with.

Fewer students study French, German and Spanish at GCSE, following the Government’s decision in 2007 to make the study of languages voluntary after the age of 14.

Only one in ten of us can speak a foreign language but it seems there is huge demand for the skill in the workplace.

During a Parliamentary debate on modern languages and the economy in December, Baroness Coussins, chair of the all-party Parliamentary group on modern languages, quoted alarming research by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce.

This showed four-fifths of English exporters were unable to conduct business in a foreign language and more than three-quarters believed it had lost them sales.

As a result, the UK economy could be missing out on £21bn of contracts each year.

CBI surveys show that two-thirds of UK employers are dissatisfied with the foreign language skills of school-leavers and are forced to recruit from overseas as a result.

There is such a shortage of English mother-tongue translators at the United Nations and the European Parliament that meetings have to be cancelled because no English interpretation is available.

Kathy Haig, head teacher at Burford School, also regards foreign exchange trips as a vital part of the curriculum and will not be asking parents to undergo CRB checks.

“We have international school status because of our links with schools around the globe, so we think those educational links, exchanges and visits are really important.

“It is all about the children’s wider education and an understanding that they may live in a nice village and go to a nice school in the Cotswolds but there is a whole world out there for them to explore and be global citizens.

“Our French exchange has just happened and when the children from France come back here in February, we now don’t need to do the CRB checks. As a school we have been fortunate enough that it hasn’t really impacted on us,” she added.

Parents of students at Abingdon schools are still undergoing the checks but Ms Cutler is hopeful that most will consent to them, even if they are inconvenient.

“I think most parents will be supportive but I am not happy about having to have everyone CRB’d,” Ms Cutler said.

“As a country and culture we can be quite narrow-minded, so anything that helps us communicate with Europe is a good thing,” she added.