To be suprised schools still do French exchanges ?what with the safeguard risks

[WhatTheCatHeard]

So my child is disappointed
that we don’t want them to go int he French exchange, which woudl
be basically our child living with another random family for a week…
then returning the favour

seems a bit too much of a risk for me
but im
suprised it’s even really allowed these days

I feel so sad for your child. If he has a gift for languages this will be a great experience for him I went on 2 exchange trips as a child and remember then fondly.

I'm not really sure what there is to safeguard the parents will be sending their child to you? It's such an enriching experience.

They are rare. It is a good experience but I can see why they don't happen much.

These days there is no need to worry about it - you child has a phone? Please please don't deprive them of this wonderful, amazing and now rare opportunity!

I did a Spanish exchange for my DD and DH and I both had to be DBS checked first being allowed to host: Not sure if the equivalent is done abroad. Most the activities were organised by the schools anyway. Rather different to when French Exchange in the 1990s.

The children are old enough to speak up if uncomfortable, there are teachers with them on the trip! But honestly, everything in life carries some risk - every time you step outside your front door or get in a car there's a small risk that you will die! The chances of anything happening to your child on an exchange trip are small - you have to balance that against the enrichment they will gain from visiting another country and seeing how their European peers live!

I think it’s a real shame that these opportunities are so few and far between. I stayed with a family in France when I was 13 and then with 2 different families in Germany…. I’m still friends with my pen pal 40 years on. My French is good my German pretty dire. My son stayed with a family in Paris while studying A level. We also had 2 boys staying with us about 10 years ago - our son spent a week with each of their families. All experiences positive.

I think it's such a shame that exchanges happen so rarely these days. I went on one French exchange and three German exchanges, and they helped my language skills so much. I don't think much of the way my DC have been taught languages. They only seem to be able to parrot set phrases, rather than put sentences together themselves. It makes such a difference to be immersed in a language for a week or two.

If either of mine had had the opportunity and wanted to go, I'd have been delighted.

Yanbu i wouldn't let my child go

I’m shocked they’re still a thing. They were still a thing when I was in secondary school 15 years ago and we were saying then that it’s so mental to send your kid to live with another family for a week in a different country.
For every child that came back with a penal for life, there was one with a weird story. I remember a girl whose German exchange family only offered her sparkling water and she couldn’t get it down her and in the end was so thirsty she drank out the cats bowl when no one was watching 🤣

We have let fear rule
all life is risk and with modern tech the risks are way less than they ever were
and we lose so much as result

Could she not reach the tap?

I host international students from all over the world. The youngest I've hosted were just 11 years old. Everyone in my house is DBS checked and the children have teachers, mobile phones, other friends and the school if there are any concerns.

I wish my DC had had this opportunity!

Im surprised kids are allowed to leave the house on their own these days.

I find it amazing they’re still allowed to go ahead. For context, I play/umpire netball and if we have an under 18 umpire they have to have a DBS checked adult standing near them the whole game for safeguarding reasons. On a netball court surrounded by other netball courts and close to 100 people in the area.

Yet 3-4 years ago that same child could have been sent abroad to sleep in a house with adults she’d never met on a French exchange, with no idea of their background?!

Im sure the risk is small, but the risk of many things is small and yet ‘safeguarding’ means we take loads of precautions. Exchanges seem to be an anomaly, albeit a rarer one than 20 years ago.

i don’t doubt the language benefits btw.

I was desperate at that age to do an exchange but even then in the 90s my parents said no! It’s such a shame as I think most families are perfectly, happy and capable safe adults it’s the not knowing that’s scary!

anybody else remember the Chernobyl children coming over? This was when I was small, we used to host a child always a boy!

My kids unfortunately didn’t have any foreign exchange opportunities but I wouldn’t have hesitated to allow them to go. They were perfectly normal when I studied French and German at GCSE and A level back in the day and were massively beneficial in terms of language learning and general cultural enrichment.

Mine wasn't that fun. They were strict and I didnt like the food 😆

No wonder some people are frightened to move out of their comfort zones these days. With parents like this.

Having done safeguarding training, I was really surprised that one of my DD's schools still does exchanges. She won't be doing one. The other's school seems not to do any MFL trips because the MFL staff all seem to have small children. Thry used to do trips, not exchanges, but haven’t done any for her year. It's a real shame as she's doing 2 MFL GCSEs.

If the exchange is between two schools so you know that the family are known to the school, you have teachers from your school there with the children and your child is confident and capable enough to call you and/or a teacher if they need to, the risk is minimal. If your child wants to go, let them. Yes, they might end up with a weird story (only drinking fizzy water is quite normal in many parts of Germany - that’s the cultural learning that you get from an exchange - but I can’t believe they didn’t have running water in the tap or else where did the cat bowl get filled from…?) They might even have a bit of a miserable time and that’s unfortunate but part of normal life. The chances of anything terrible happening is no greater than when they go places without you in the UK, but hopefully you’re not keeping them locked up at home and only allowing them out to go to school…? Year 10 and up, I would have no qualms at all about my children going.

DBS checks aren't worth anything. They can just means someone hasn't been caught.

I wouldn't let my child go on an exchange. Heard too many dodgy stories from my friends when they went on them. My kids aren't stuck in the house terrified of the outside world. They go on residentials, do clubs etc but no way are they staying at some strangers house in another country. I wouldn't have gone when I was younger either.

What a shame to limit your child’s horizons. The world is there to enjoy, and an exchange is a great start, building independence and resilience, as well as reducing the irrational “fear of the unknown” that the OP is experiencing.

The biggest risk for children is the fact many of them have bad parents (they're far more likely to be hurt by parents/other adults and children in the home, whether physically or by those people letting them be harmed online, than by anything to do with schools and school trips).

My French exchange partner took me shop lifting…aged 11 I was v scared but really struggled to explain why…