Welsh language school dilemma

hogynllangwyfan

Sorry to hear the problems you're having. Its been a real problem around Cardiff at the moment. The Council, from what I know, is trying to open more but getting some serious local resistance.

maman

OP, as neither you or your OH speak Welsh might it be a problem supporting your child with his schoolwork when the time comes?

My SIL is Welsh speaking and she, and my brother, thought long and hard about sending my nephew to a Welsh medium school. Overall they decided not to as they didn't want my brother to be excluded from e.g. hearing him read at home. In the end my nephew (and subsequent nieces) went to an English medium school and continued to speak some Welsh with their mother and mamgu at home.

You say that the snob in you won't let your child go to the new Welsh school. What are options of an English medium school in your catchment? How heavily subscribed is the existing Welsh school? Is it fully subscribed from within catchment or might you be lucky with an out of catchment place as you live so near geographically? Why not go and talk to the Head as they should know what the demographic projections are for 3 years down the line.

pavlovs_dog

Schools are getting a lot better about bridging the gap between home and school in spite of the language barriers. Take Ysgol Gymraeg Treganna in Cardiff as an example, who have won awards for their use of IT and their website to get the parents involved in their child's education, even if they don't speak a word of Welsh themselves. Everything is available bilingually - homework help for example is in Welsh that is age appropriate to the children, and in plain English for Mum and Dad so that they can help. In some ways, the children from English families stand to gain more from this than their counterparts from Welsh families, as the process of switching from one language to the other whilst discussing with Mum or Dad really works the brain and helps with the creative and learning process.

for those contemplating raising their children bilingually the twf website has a lot of useful info

code-a-holic

Just spotted this thread. Not sure if i can say anything thats new, but!
I went to a welsh school while both parents couldnt speak a word. i went on to welsh secondary school and then a welsh job! My children now go to the same primary school and i help run the local Meithrin(welsh playgroup) and Ti a FI (welsh parent and baby).
Most Meithrins are linked to a primary school so if your child goes to the meithrin they automaticlly get a place in the primary school. Same procedure for ti a fi, automaticlly get a place in Meithrin.
I would imagine any Welsh school would be attached to a meithrin now so could be a good loophole to catchment area rules.

Pee

I have three friends who went to Welsh language schools and they speak English very well, and I think it gave them an aptitude for other languages. (I appreciate that it is quite a small test group.)

One of them now teaches mathes and is very annoyed when much of her time is spent - paid for by the school - translating work into Welsh only for the parents to say that they think little johnny would do better with it in English. (She teaches in a school with a small Welsh section, so the classes tend to be much smaller, which is why some of the parents have chosen the Welsh language route.)

That said, eveyone on here seems very positive about it.

Janepig

code-a-holic wrote: »

Just spotted this thread. Not sure if i can say anything thats new, but!
I went to a welsh school while both parents couldnt speak a word. i went on to welsh secondary school and then a welsh job! My children now go to the same primary school and i help run the local Meithrin(welsh playgroup) and Ti a FI (welsh parent and baby).
Most Meithrins are linked to a primary school so if your child goes to the meithrin they automaticlly get a place in the primary school. Same procedure for ti a fi, automaticlly get a place in Meithrin.
I would imagine any Welsh school would be attached to a meithrin now so could be a good loophole to catchment area rules.

Although this is not the case if your child attends a meithrin that is not attached to a primary school, such as the one my DS attends. We've had a nail-biting time up until last Thursday when we finally found out that he would be able to join his sister at the welsh school across the field from where he attends meithrin. And this is the case for all the feeder meithrinfa for that school - the school is hugely over-subscribed and simple attendance at one of the "feeder" meithrinfa is no guarantee of place.

The school he will be attending in September has a nursery unit as part of the school and therefore run by the schoo (iykwim) so he will be starting full-time from September when he will be 3. Which is why the fact that he attends a meithrin doesn't guarantee automatic entry. I think there might be two schools in the surrounding area though that do have their nursery units run by cylch meithrin which is I guess where your loophole comes in.

Jxx