When Education Secretary Charles Clarke was asked "parlez-vous francais?", no one expected him to answer in near-perfect French.

But he did - and also chipped in with a bit of German and even a little Spanish.

However, being greeted by student Dominic Ransom in Japanese when he arrived at Hove Park School did leave him flummoxed.

He was also welcomed by a number of Swedish students visiting the school - but they all spoke perfect English.

Still, the Education Secretary proved he could put his money where his mouth is as he helped launch Brighton and Hove's language strategy.

The scheme has been created to get children as young as six learning languages, encourage youngsters to take them for GCSE and stop the decline in the number of pupils leaving school without even a smattering of French or Spanish.

He said: "As a country, we need to do far better.

"I think it is particularly important here in Brighton and Hove where at Hove Park they are focusing on it as a school as well as being part of a network.

"I do think we have got to work harder in my department to raise standards because it really is important.

"The world in which we are growing up is a global one."

Mr Clarke praised Hove Park, which is running the strategy with Brighton and Hove City Council, for helping to lift standards in language education.

The school, which has specialist language status, runs courses in Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Arabic as well as many European languages.

Headteacher Tim Barclay said: "Many of our students go on to study and work abroad and this is hugely important.

"To underestimate the power of communicating in foreign languages is to do so at your own peril."

Mr Barclay said the school had been working with a number of primary schools to develop languages at an early age.

He said: "Languages are no longer compulsory to Key Stage 4 and a lot of people drop them at school because they find them uninteresting or have difficulty learning them. That is not what we want."

The council is one of only 19 "pathfinder" authorities in the UK and has successfully bid for Government funding to find new ways of teaching languages to six to 11-year-olds.

For the next two years, up to 25 primary schools and four secondary schools will participate in a collaboration to bring the best of early language teaching into schools and develop a sustainable pool of skills and teaching resources.

The strategy was finalised earlier this year following wide consultation with teachers in the public and private sector, teacher-trainers and others with an interest in language learning and teaching.

Schools councillor Pat Hawkes said: "There is no question we are on to a winner here.

"It is important we spread out on the international front."