To send DS to Welsh School?

[saturdaynightgin]

DS is almost 3 and due to start nursery in September. His older sibling goes to the local Welsh-medium school and it’s our intention to send DS there (his place has been confirmed).

However, my parents and a few other family members have expressed concern about his going to a Welsh-medium school due to his speech delay. DS has been discharged by SALT as they were happy with his progress, but he’s still not speaking in full sentences. Our instinct is that he’ll catch up when he’s ready and going to Welsh-medium school will be no different to English-medium in terms of speech development. But now family have planted seeds of doubt and I’m beginning to question our decision.

For context, DH doesn’t speak Welsh at all, but I am able to hold a conversation and try my best to speak Welsh at home with our older child. There are no other development concerns with DS.

So, AIBU to send him to Welsh-medium school?

General advice for bilingual children is to speak to children in your mother tongue, so that you are modelling good language, especially if you have a child with a language delay.
He's very young still and is likely to have caught up by the time he starts school and even if he doesn’t catch up, being exposed to another language would not necessarily be a bad thing. I wouldn’t change my plans if I were you.

If SALT is happy and the school have expressed no concerns - I'd probably continue with original plan of Welsh medium school.

It can be a pain dealing with two schools - and while I believe being bilingual can cause some delays in language acquisition initially long term there are benefits.

Welsh medium isn't what we wanted for our children - who already had few years in English school system - but if it's what you want and no actual professional said anything against it I'd go ahead.

You can keep an eye on the situation and try a different school later if it does become an issue - though I wonder if it's more family being English speaking and perhaps not as positive about welsh medium study than anything esle.

I've no expertise in speech development so can't help you there, but I'd send my children to Irish language schools if I could. Non-Irish speakers are very hesitant about those schools so maybe that's what you're experiencing with your family. I think people worry they won't be able to communicate with the child. But we're surrounded by English so there's no fear our children won't pick it up.

The reluctance from English speaking family is not something I’ve considered before, but actually I think you may be right.

DS has come on leaps and bounds in the past few months, so hopefully he’ll continue to make improvements over the next 10 weeks and this won’t be as much of an issue!

I grew up in a welsh school and it's always been a huge advantage to be bilingual. My friend at primary spoke english at home and welsh at school and had send needs (not sure what, but she was "remedial" and had some special classes) and she didn't seem to have any problem with the 2 languages.

I also taught for a while in a bilingual system, and you could see how well it worked for the kids, and somehow especially the send ones.

I'd send to welsh school in heartbeat. It's so great to have 2 languages. I'm second language welsh and can understand it fairly well and speak it conversationally but my biggest wish was that my parents had sent me to 1st language welsh class.

If SALT are happy then I'm sure he'll be fine. My dc was under SLAT and in a language unit. We were told not to send him to a Welsh medium when he was due to return to main stream. That was a real pain as they turned our local primary school into Welsh medium, so we had to send him else where and move his sibling. Neither myself or dh are Welsh speakers so that obviously swayed our decision as well.

I wouldn’t. Unless they live in Wales when they’re older what advantage at all is it going to be for them to speak Welsh?

It’s not like Spanish or French which is spoken in multiple countries across the globe.

They are clearly growing up in Wales so it makes sense to learn the language. It's like telling someone French to not bother speaking it or learning in a French school because they may one day move to Spain. Ridiculous.

My dd goes to a Welsh medium primary and It's been great.

I have read official responses from some SLT in Wales raising concerns that children who struggle with language development were disadvantaged by being sent to WME, (if not from a Welsh speaking household) and should be allowed the chance to develop one language well rather than having to develop two. Those were individual opinions.

Welsh language is very politicised in Wales and the view one gets from SLT may reflect their commitment to the welsh language or their fear of speaking an honest opinion if they do think it would be disadvantageous.

We considered WME for our child but, in retrospect, I am glad we did not. They turned out to struggle with literacy for many years and I suspect WME would have made that worse.

Its nothing like that! Everyone in France speaks French. You would struggle to get anything but the most menial and manual of jobs if you cannot speak French in France.

Everyone in Wales speaks English. Some people also speak Welsh. You can surely see the difference here from the importance of French to French people!

If you want to work in the public sector in Wales, for some jobs you will may have an advantage if you speak Welsh. Some jobs are only for Welsh speakers due to legal requirements. But no-one in Wales struggles to get a job if they 'only' speak English. Unlike if you cannot speak French in France!

There are so many benefits to learning a second language at school: bilingual people are able to pick up further language more easily and understand the world around them through a second, different prism. Links to family and heritage. There’s also some research to show that the connections in a bilingual person’s brain are
more resistant to degeneration in later years. also “only useful in Wales” - well, if she’s got access to a Welsh school, OP IS in Wales so it’s pretty useful!

Languages are a gift - OP, if all the professionals say it’s a good idea, do it!

There are lots of advantages to being bilingual, it isn't just a case of oh when will they speak it outside of Wales.

My children go to Irish language speaking schools OP and I would send your ds to the Welsh school on a heartbeat. He will be fine and if he isn't you can always change schools later but I would try for sure. Ds is 15 and autistic and is now in Irish speaking secondary school and flying it. He has friends with various of NDs in his school and they are all doing great too. Dd saw a SALT when she was a toddler as she was a late speaker and she is about to start secondary and is fluent in Irish now.

People that don't know how it works can be a bit funny about children to going to schools where they speak a different language than they do but our experience as a family has been nothing but positive.

We are an English speaking family, DD (4) is coming to the end of her Meithrin year in Welsh medium school, having also been in Welsh medium cylch for 2 years. She is under SALT and the Additional learning needs outreach team for an atypical speech sound disorder.

She is thriving, she loves it at cylch and school. In the last few weeks her use of Welsh (words, short phrases and singing) had exploded, typical as we are about to go into 7 weeks of school holidays!

Her school is a small village school (60 pupils) her cylch leader and school TA (same person) is extremely clued up on SALT issues. She loves hanging out with the older kids who are better able to guess what she is saying in relation to context, compared to kids her own age.

Personally I'd ignore the Welsh medium/English medium issue here, and choose the school best equipped to support the additional learning needs.

My children are in Welsh Medium. Neither me or my husband are Welsh speakers. They’re doing fine so fare. In my childrens school 95% of families don’t speak Welsh at home. In some cases Welsh is a 3rd language for a child. Everything comes home bilingual and the school offered Welsh for parents classes. Which I found really useful for incidental Welsh at home.

The only time I regretted my choice was during lockdown as trying to homeschool in Welsh. Though I did the best I could and we watched loads of Cwy.

Where are you? I’m in Cardiff and WME for none Welsh speaking families is really common

Thank you for all your responses. I’m very keen to send DS to WM - the culture, as well as the benefit of bilingualism are really important to me (as an ex-teacher or MFL). It’s more the impact of WM on his speech development that I was concerned about.

@Choopi @RIPWalter so pleased to hear your DC are doing so well! My eldest is thriving in WM too, but she didn’t have a speech delay. Your posts are very reassuring, so thank you.

@NottheLot the SALT therapist didn’t comment on his schooling other than to say that if the school has concerns they can re-refer through their own channels.

@BovrilMartini I’m in Neath. My eldest DC is in Blwyddyn 1 and out of her class of 20, there’s only one child who comes from a Welsh speaking family.

If they’re Welsh they presumably have a good chance of living in wales when older. Many many public sector jobs in wales now require or show a strong preference for welsh speakers.
I am guessing you don’t realise how prevalent it is in parts of wales. The Op’s child will seriously miss out!

@NottheLot , no, not everybody. There are young children who will have spoken nothing but Welsh, and there are older people who have not needed to speak much English throughout their lives. Elderly people who have suffered a stroke or similar will struggle when dealing with someone with no Welsh, which can be an issue in hospitals or EMI care.

An ability to speak two or more languages from an early age is beneficial if you learn new languages.

My kids went to Welsh medium schools and one of them also had speech therapy when he was about your sons age

It doesn't seem to have held him back at all - he's awaiting his A level results (done in Welsh) and plans on studying biochemistry at uni

Neither his father or I speak Welsh fluently

BTW the only time it came in was when he had the first assessment the woman was getting confused over how he was pronouncing the word 'blue' - when I said 'he's saying 'Glas'' she stopped the assessment and said she needed to get someone who was bilingual to do the assessment

It’s obvious you know nothing about language development or Wales.
Learning another language at a young age has lots of benefits beyond just knowing the second language; better vocabulary, attention and listening, reasoning skills. Bilingual children tend to have better outcomes all through their lives.
On top of that, Welsh is an advantage for most Welsh jobs and a necessity for some.

Much to the dismay of my parents (I'm never very sure why), our dc went to Scottish Gaelic medium school. Ds was a little slow to start speaking (not enough for salt) and my parents were really outspoken about it. They're the same about my nephews who live in wales and have a native speaker mum. I think it's because they know nothing about it, and my step-mum was a learning support teacher.

All 3 of our dc went through the GME system and even now (they're 18, 20 and 22) it's important to them. There are so many positives about being bilingual and so few negatives. Please give your dc this opportunity if you can!

(P.S. I still don't speak Gaelic!)

@iolaus That’s good to hear! Fingers crossed for your DS’ results!

@weegiemum i’m definitely going to send him now that’s I’ve had some reassurance. As a PP said, we can always change schools further down the line if it becomes a bigger issue.

Thanks again everyone 😊

There are many advantages to being bilingual that go way beyond the practical. It opens up a whole world of arts, culture and literature for a start, so it can expand someone's horizons and enrich their life and experiences in many ways. It's also a connection to someone's heritage and history.

Also, it doesn't matter where they might hypothetically live when they are older. Maybe they will, indeed, choose to live outside Wales where they have no need to speak Welsh. But they will always have an option to move back if they want to and Welsh will open up more opportunities in some jobs.

Having more than one language is never going to be a disadvantage in life, basically.