Aibu to send my nearly 10 yo to a foreign speaking school if I move to a different country

[pingpongpo]

They will be 10 in may 23 and I would prefer they went to a state school to immerse in the language and culture but feel bad and am now wondering if a private English speaking school would be better.

Some people I know are saying iabu to even think about doing this and others have been through it and are bilingual. Can't decide at all. I can get by in the language but I'm not fluent. Will probably become fluent and plan to.

I did that at exactly that age - it's the reason I'm now fluent in English to the point that people assume it's my native language. Didn't speak more than 'hello, goodbye, my name is' until that age. First 2-3 years were tough but even then managed to still keep up more or less. And after that it felt natural.

A friend of mine did this at 12. Her parents had a job for a year in France - they went off, barely able to say hello in franch and came back absolutely fluent, confident and have never most that skill. I was and remain very envious!

There was a series on TV years ago about a chef who did it with his children - some struggled a lot with the social side but all learned v quickly.

If it’s French, go to the French school. If possible, start giving them private French lessons so they start to learn the basic.

I thought you are going to say it’s Arabic or an Asian language. Those are much harder for an English speaker.

The issue with going from a British to a French school will not be just the language.

The French education mentality is very different from the British. Do read up a bit about the system, and about the further education system in France (including about prepas), before you make the decision.

In Spain, you would be unlikely to get her into a decent state school by 11. Families and children of alumni get these places and by 11 the places are all gone. I speak as themother of a Spanish born DC with a Spanish father... it was unbelievably hard to get a good school.

That is what would worry me. That and friendships. Schools on the continent are far more focussed on grammar than the UK. It will be tough.

Agree with PP, British private schools are awful. Your Dcs would be taught by interns or students from the UK without any decent qualifications who are hired as they are cheap, on temporary contracts. Obviously there are a few qualified teachers.

Will you be immediately throwing yourself into a French speaking only workplace?

I wouldn’t do this. I think it’s different if the child has had intensive lessons in the language beforehand/it’s a bilingual school, but to throw them into a situation where they will basically miss out on important education because they physically won’t be able to access it is pointless in my opinion. I actually went back to college as an adult to get my A-Levels and one man on my course was there for this reason. His parents had moved to another country where he didn’t speak the language and thrown him into school because ‘kids are sponges who just pick the language up.’ He did pick the basics of the language up, but was 10 years behind everyone else - it’s hard enough to comprehend historical facts and literary analysis without doing it in a language you’ve never spoken, and I think it could lead to alienation from school.

I recall a Chinese boy starting in our HIgh School, he had no English but his father's opinion was that he would learn English more quickly without language support and boy, did he! After a couple of years the family went to live in the US and he wrote to his teacher from the plane, 4 A4 pages of almost perfect English, he said the first words he learned were Stop running!

I will say I’d think differently if it was a small child of about 3/4 years old. In that case the language would be their main learning, and they would pick it up quickly while learning with all the other children. But in the case of a child almost in secondary school, they are too far behind and the language difference becomes a barrier at a time when many kids struggle with academics even in their own first language. I wouldn’t want to put any more barriers in front of my child accessing difficult subjects.

I had two friends at school that moved here knowing absolutely no English and become fluent incredibly quickly. One was a Korean girl aged 9 or 10, and one was a Russian girl aged 12, so not exactly similar languages that might make it easier to pick up English.

Yes, 5 is no problem, 11 is a different matter altogether.

Here in lreland all the children who have come from Poland/ Latvia etc just go straight into the local schools and are fluent before very long. It's just amazing how quickly they learn to speak English and if they arrive a bit earlier than 10 they learn lrish as well. Just do it. They will be fine.

@annonymousse because I feel like it's still a choice and I'm worried my dc won't forgive me if they're unhappy. Many expats send their dc to British schools and live between Britain and France. If dc was younger I wouldn't think twice. But 10 is harder imo.
I will probably hire tutors as well to get them up to scratch in French if they went to the local school.

I had this experience at just a year younger. It was a boarding school as well. I became fluent extremely quickly and became properly bilingual.
There was another girl there who was English home language like me which helped me feel less isolated initially.

Honestly they will take it in their stride

so many comments from people who can’t speak any other languages and won’t ever migrate or live anywhere other than where they are.

Make the best choice of school for your child, the French system is different but it is recognised internationally.

Do you work in schools supporting these Polish & Latvian students? Supporting these types of students is something I’m working on at the moment - the schools I’ve worked in where attainment is low often have high levels of English as an additional language. It’s sort of a myth that you all these Polish/Russian/Chinese/other language students just skip into British schools and are speaking fluent English and attaining high grades immediately. It’s just simply not the case much of the time - often these students struggle as their basic comprehension and language is behind, and that’s why there are specific jobs for supporting them.

It is obviously so much more than language though. The whole system is so incredibly different. The culture etc.

It also depends on where in France... a large capital city in the area/province or a large town or just a town etc.

@Kanaloa they are already well ahead in the U.K. curriculum, so my thinking is that they might have some room to 'fall behind' academically at the expense of learning another language.

That is to say that they may seem to pick the language up quickly but still struggle to comprehend complicated academic concepts/write compositions and essays well/understand academic writing. If it was a case of ‘they’ll be fine, just do it’ then there wouldn’t be jobs supporting ESL students, they’d just get on with it.

I think that’s very naive in a way. They may have some room to ‘fall behind’ but how do you know they won’t need that time to adjust to a whole new curriculum with different methods of teaching and some different subjects? I would really reconsider to be honest.

Why not discuss it with them?

Perhaps they could finish French primary school and go to British senior school. Or is that also a bad idea?
@Kanaloa thanks for your honest opinion my backup plan would be to
send them to a private British speaking school if they didn't cope but I feel I should try at least. But I'm being cautious as don't want to end up hated!
@Jaxhog I will of course discuss it but I want to get facts and thoughts clear before I do so. Ie if it's just primary school then I can make that clear or whatever else needs to be said to them, I feel I need to be clear on it first.

I’ve been the child, similar age too. Had some English but it was very basic. Immersion is the best way to learn a language, and quickly. As a result I’m fluent in three languages, and it’s something I’ve found to be incredibly valuable as a skill. Do it.

Thousands of children come to England and learn English quickly. Your child would be the same.

No education system is perfect but in your case I would put them in the local French system.
It’s really not a hard language for English speakers to pick up and the writing system is the same as for English. They’ll likely be fluent in less than a year (I was).
You can get them lessons, reading materials like comics, apps etc. before you go.
Being bilingual has been shown to have excellent benefits for brain development as well as in terms of enhancement of opportunities.
IME if children in ex-pat communities stick to ex-pat schools then they have no escape if things don’t work out at the school and the family is more isolated from wider society.
Kids at international schools are also pretty much locked into expensive overseas fees for an English-speaking university whereas if they join the local system they have the option of university in that country, if you decide to stay there permanently.

I know a family very well who made the move from England to France when their kids were 11, 12 and 6. They went to local French schools. All 3 of them ended up as fluent as native speakers. They've all moved back to Britain now, although the two eldest kids went to French universities. If the move is permanent I really think you ought to do it.

I studied languages at university and there was a girl on my course who was British but born and brought up in Spain, but cloistered in an expat community (the type where even the people who run the local shop are British), went to a British school, and her Spanish was worse than mine (with just my A-level). You could tell she was embarrassed and it was just really sad. What a wasted opportunity. Imagine when your kids are older if they have to tell people they spent half their childhood in France and people go to them "oh, how lovely! So you speak really good French then," and they have to say "actually no, I barely learnt more than you did at school, we spent all our time in the ex-pat community.

That said, it is a valid point that a pp has made that the whole school system in France is different. Personally I think it's more stressful, they get much more homework, they have to work longer hours and do more subjects at 6th form (lycée)... people I know who've experienced both systems say the French one is much more rigid, more focussed on regurgitating the one "right" answer that's in the textbook rather than fostering creativity and critical thinking... it's worth researching... Still though, I think if the move is permanent you've got to really send them to the local school.