Bilingual education - cruel or kind?

[tryingtoleave]

I am having a dilemma.

DS (who is almost five) has been at a bilingual french-english preschool for a year and a half. We sent him there because the preschool suited us in many ways and it fed into an excellent state bilingual school. He has been happy there, has done much better than we expected (we were worried about his behaviour before he started) and we have been very impressed with the school generally.

But now we suddenly have to move. I have spoken to the french school where we are moving and they think they will have room for him in the grande section in August. But, unlike ds's preschool (where most of the children speak English as their first langauge), this school is predominantly French. DH doesn't have any French and my french is very passive - I can read fairly well and understand a bit but I can't speak much. So I'm worried that DS could feel a bit excluded, that he might struggle with his work, that we might not be able to help him enough and that generally we might be making his schooling harder for him than it need be. I also worry that the school might have quite a transient expat population, so friends would move away. Also, I think he will be young in his class - while if I just put him in a normal Australian school in February he would be one of the oldest. OTOH, I think languages are generally taught very badly here and this could be a great opportunity for ds.

So, I was wondering if anyone has experience with this kind of thing? Or any advice?

MmeLindor - correct you are about the sponge myth!!

We're an American family in France. DD started French public school in GS w/o a word of French. She got along fine as most of the activity was playing, drawing, learning alphabet, writing... all things that DD was very advanced in (in English). In fact, I was mildly annoyed that the level of work in GS was so low.

Now, DD is in CE2 (at a local French public school which has an international section for Anglophones to learn reading/writing/grammar in English 1hr per day) and her level of French is very good - but still lower than her French peers (e.g., French vocabulary is mainly from school). If I had to assess it, I would say that DD is in top 10% in English class, but is in bottom 30% in her normal French classwork. And this, even though DD sees a very good French tutor for 3 hours per week!!

Also, there's this: each time we are away from a French environment for any period of time (e.g., vacy in the States), DP & I are on pins and needles about a drop in DD's level of French as neither DP nor I can speak French. (well DP can speak it - but he learned it here in the past 4 years - he's pretty good, actually. but not native, obviously).

Overall, it has been so much hard work, that at times I question whether we can keep it up. Basically, we have to modify our entire lives to accommodate DD's French. This also means paying for schooling when we return to the States. In the end, I think we will do everything to keep it going (see: "sunk cost theory"). I would have a meltdown if DD loses her French and we've done all this for naught!!