Camp for French boy to learn English

[pupuce]

A French friend wants to send her 8yo to an English camp to learn the language of Shakespeare... any suggestion ?
Thank you

[pupuce]

..

[Marina]

No idea Pupuce but is she really set on this rather than trying to build up a family-based exchange programme?

[pupuce]

She just started looking into this.
Do you have suggestions on family exchanges ?

[Marina]

Have to buzz off now but will give this some thought. Not off-hand but can see us looking into this when ds is a couple of years older.
I would start with wherever her French town is twinned with...or see if anyone on here is interested.
Fired up with the idea after we had a lovely holiday near Lille and our gite owner turned out to be the head of the village ecole. Smashing family...intend to stay in touch (not least because their teenage daughter comes to London sometimes and we have hospitality to repay willingly)

[Marina]

I could ask at school too. French taught from seven and lots of nice families.

[frogs]

My dd1 goes to Mill on the Brue for a week each summer, and they seem to have a smattering of unaccompanied children from France and Spain etc. It is the most wonderful place, and can't recommend it highly enough. Dd1 looks forward to it all year round.

[pupuce]

She is from Lille actually....
Thanks Frog I'll forward that!

[JanH]

Have a look at allef , pupuce.

[Lilymaid]

Try contacting
PGL

[frogs]

It is a tricky one, actually. Dd1 (just 11) has been wanting to do a German exchange for a while, but we haven't really been able to get it off the ground because there are so few people keen to do this kind of thing for primary-age children. Allef in JanH's link are a very reputable outfit and seem very nice (I've had several conversations with them) but only operate exchanges for a minimum of 6 months each way (ie. your child goes to France for 6 months, French child comes to you for 6 months) which seemed a bit too extreme for most tastes, and could wreak havoc with English secondary transfer system.

Mill on the Brue are very good pastorally (it's one of their strengths), unlike some summer camps which can be a bit sink or swim. Dd1 went for the first time aged 8 not knowing anyone else there, and had a ball. But I think it is quite a tall order for a non-English child unless they are very robust or already have pretty high level English. If I was seriously going to send my child as a non-fluent English speaker, I'd probably want him/her to be accompanied by a friend to make the shock less extreme.

Is your friend's child a boy or a girl? Ds (nearly 7) would probably be up for it, and frankly for me one extra child more or less isn't a big difference. But 'Oh, it's someone I've encountered a few times on an internet chat board' is probably not what they're looking for by way of a recommendation...

Alternatively, some boarding prep schools take non-English children for a term. That would probably be my preferred option for a serious language learning experience, but you'd need a pretty robust confident 8yo to be up for it.

[JanH]

I just had another look at that allef link - you couldn't possibly guess which of those 2 boys is the English one, could you?