Cardiff school closures

anm_2

I have 3 children in english speaking schools and all of them are doing well my eldest is in a super class and is doing exceptionally well across the whole of the curriculum and is expected to do very well in his gcse's. So i dont feel that i have failed them by not sending them to welsh medium schools. Although i dont have a problem with welsh medium schools i just dont see why my kids have to suffer by having their school closed down

And their school is not on my doorstep they have to walk for 20 to 30 minutes to get to school.

As for children attending welsh schools i no of a few children who attend welsh schools and not one of them speaks welsh outside school. How many of them will speak fluent welsh all of the time once they have left school unless their job calls for it, cause when they go to college and uni surely they will have to speak english..

pavlovs_dog

anm wrote:

I i dont feel that i have failed them by not sending them to welsh medium schools.

i never implied that you had, i was just stating the over side of the argument, that being that the increase in welsh school places is as a result of increased demand for welsh school places, not an anti english medium school witch hunt.

anm wrote:

And their school is not on my doorstep they have to walk for 20 to 30 minutes to get to school.

the point i was trying to make is that often this is a result of parental choice, because they decline their local comprehensive in order for their children to have a church/welsh/specialist education.

anm wrote:

As for children attending welsh schools i no of a few children who attend welsh schools and not one of them speaks welsh outside school. How many of them will speak fluent welsh all of the time once they have left school unless their job calls for it, cause when they go to college and uni surely they will have to speak english..

depends on your uni. 90% of my lectures are delivered through the medium of welsh, my social life on campus is through the medium of welsh. i also use welsh in my place of work

as for jobs, if you apply for most jobs in wales, but especially public sector work, you are at an advantage if you are bilingual, because it gives your employer (and you) more options. i know many people who have landed jobs because they have more than one language at their disposal. As you point out in an earlier post, being a multicultural city, there is great demand for such skills in cardiff. having an extra language, be it welsh, hindu, urdu, arabic, punjabi, cantonese, mandarin, pakistani or whatever opens doors.


may i ask anm, do your children go to church school because you are a practising catholic family, or because you thought it would offer the best standard of education for them? or a combination of the two?

aurora_borealis_2

I'm not Welsh speaking but all three of mine went/are going through Welsh education.

My reasons for choosing this route were simply because they were amongst the best schools, academically and, importantly, their attitude to behaviour and discipline was superior to other local schools.

I researched it carefully and learned that my children would not be disadvantaged by a lack of Welsh at home. This was true, they were fluent very quickly and when homework help was needed they simply translated the questions for me.

Two of my children are now at uni after excellent exam results, including 14 GCSEs each.

However, they are both studying science related subjects and have had to get used to unknown English terminology. DD2 has been known to email her ex teachers for translation. No big problem though, both of them have passed all their exams, do far.

DD1 had a gap year first and got a very good job on the basis of her Welsh fluency. DD2 has also used her Welsh lucratively and translates English websites to Welsh.

DD3 (still at school) loves drama and has been an extra in several Welsh medium dramas... she would have less opportunity to do this in English, in Wales.

They all speak Welsh with friends and each other, not always but often.

With hindsight, I'm pleased I chose Welsh education for them

pavlovs_dog

aurora_borealis wrote:

However, they are both studying science related subjects and have had to get used to unknown English terminology. DD2 has been known to email her ex teachers for translation. No big problem though, both of them have passed all their exams, do far.

i've had friends go through this too. its only the subject areas with their own technical vocab which seems to cause problems.

and im the other way round, going from english medium to welsh medium education i find welsh technical terms much easier to learn, because the language is much more logical. where there are many outside influences on english (greek, latin etc) there are fewer in welsh, and as a result we get more 'composite nouns' - several words put together to form one (which often means you can tell the meaning even if you dont know the word)

anm_2

pavlovs_dog wrote:

may i ask anm, do your children go to church school because you are a practising catholic family, or because you thought it would offer the best standard of education for them? or a combination of the two?

Both, we are a a practising catholic family and i thought it offered the best standard of education (in my opinion)

I do apologise i didnt mean it to sound nasty against people who attend welsh medium schools

My objection is to the goverment closing down a school which is thriving and the standard of education and disipline is excellent. plus the upheavel for my children i myself had to move high schools as i went to an all girls school and we merged with an all boys school and everything went down hill from there..If they were planning to close the school at around that time then i dont think there would be many objections cause the school was going down hill (i attended the same school my children go to) but the school has had a major turn around and as i said is thriving.

Also my daughters primary school is turnig half of the school into a welsh medium in 2009, which is welcomed because this is not disrupting her education..They are not sure at the moment how this is going to be implemented, whether they are going to turn one of the buildings as a welsh medium and the other remining the same or keep the school as it is ( one building for infants and the other for juniors ) and have 1 form of entry for english medium and another 1 form entry for welsh medium

ALWAYS_POOR

My children went to Church in Wales schools, this is because I brought them up to go to church (I have always attended regulary). Coincidentally I think that the education these schools provided was excellent and this was another factor in my choice.

Fine, if children are from a Welsh speaking background, then attend a Welsh school, but I agree with anm that non Welsh speaking children should not suffer closure of their schools in order to provide an education for a minority (and those whose first language is Welsh are not a majority in Cardiff).

May I say that this discussion is carrying on in a very polite, friendly and enjoyable manner. Well Done!

pavlovs_dog

ALWAYS_POOR wrote:

Fine, if children are from a Welsh speaking background, then attend a Welsh school, but I agree with anm that non Welsh speaking children should not suffer closure of their schools in order to provide an education for a minority (and those whose first language is Welsh are not a majority in Cardiff)

i understand your point, even if i dont agree with it. however, both your and anm's children are also in a minority, as secular, and not church schools are the big guns in cardiff.

so we're all in the same boat

do you think that they will toughen up on admission to church schools as a result of places being put at a premium? move back towards the days where if the priest doesnt see you at church every sunday, then you aint getting in? or is church education no longer in vogue (usurped by us welshies, perhaps?) and therfore non-catholic/CofW families tend not to apply?

ALWAYS_POOR

In my children's day, you had to be seen at church every week to get the much needed signature. (But that's another story, fell out with particularly nasty female Vicar who didn't recognise my daughter enough to sign the form!!! I'm afraid I am far too low profile to ever be recognisable or memorable.)

In an ideal world all schools would have sufficient funding to be able to cater for all requirements.

anm_2

pavlovs_dog wrote:

do you think that they will toughen up on admission to church schools as a result of places being put at a premium? move back towards the days where if the priest doesnt see you at church every sunday, then you aint getting in? or is church education no longer in vogue (usurped by us welshies, perhaps?) and therfore non-catholic/CofW families tend not to apply?

yes i think they will have to accept only catholic children as there are not going to be enough places for other religions whos parents want them to be educated in a catholic school

s@sha

Hi all, I wasn't sure if I should bring this back up but I didn't really see the point of starting a whole new thread.

Did anyone here attend the meeting in Whitchurch High School this evening regarding the reorganisation of the Whitchurch schools? It was stupidly organised to take place at the same time as the council meeting to discuss setting up a welsh-medium starter class in Gabalfa Primary and I wanted to attend both but ended up not being able to go to either.

Can anyone fill me in a bit on what the general outcome of the Whitchurch meeting was? I was more interested in this one as I have a three year old and these proposals affect practically every school he could potentially attend.