setting up a bilingual school

[syl39]

Hi!

I am starting a project of opening a bilingual school from 3 to 16 in the City area, London Bridge.How many of you would be interested in enlisting their kids in such a school/or help get the project on foot?

Syl39

We've been considering Hockerill for my bilingual daughter. We live in Switzerland and France, but are an anglophone family. The Swiss school system is very academic and my daughter - I will not lie LOL - is not! We know several families with children at the Anglo-European and they are all very pleased with it.

These are children primarily like mine - French outside the home, English inside. The majority of them were at the various international schools in Switzerland before going there. I admit that's my worry - my child is primarily francophone in an academic environment. She speaks (and reads) fluently in English, with a British accent (guess who that is from :) ), but I worry that the college may still be too English-language oriented for a truly bilingual child.

I'd be grateful to hear what others have to say about it.

Hi there,

I would be very interested in a bilingual primary. I live in Lewisham borough and not only was there a shortage of 500 reception places it is also very dificult to get a place in a private school around Blackheath/Greenwich.

There is a vacant school in the borough which has had permission for it to be converted back to a primary, but not sure of anything more than that, it may become an overflow primary, but perhaps just big enough to have a small private school and single form state school on the same site, not sure though.

I've been involved in a project to set up an international secondary school in Greenwich for some time. The plan is to open in September 2012 with a Year 7 intake and teach the IB Middle Years Programme. There will be a strong emphasis on languages, and we're investigating the possibility of incorporating a French unit catering for bilingual children - we've conducted several surveys in south-east and east London over the past year and more than 75% of interested families are French-speaking. But the idea is that the school would also be open to English-only speakers who wanted an immersive experience. Partly we feel that the needs of speakers of other languages are not being met and partly we want to try to do something about the low priority accorded to languages in secondary schools.

It will be small, non-selective and inclusive AND will offer a broader education than you could expect in a French school, with music etc, possibly even involving parents in these areas. We also want this to be a school where the teachers know their students and can offer real support and monitoring.

This is a free school project being run by a group of parents, teachers and educationalists - many of us with bilingual children - but to gain government approval we need to show strong parental demand from families in south-east London. If this appeals to any of you on this thread, please go to our website www.internationalacademygreenwich.org.uk to find out more and register your interest. We've got more than 300 families interested so far with children of all ages, but we want as much support as we can get before the application goes into the Department for Education in a month's time.

this is a fantastic idea - i've registered my interest - make sure you do too, go to

www.internationalacademygreenwich.org.uk/

Syl39, are you still pursuing this? I had the exact same idea for North London. My husband is half French and we are raising our two boys (1 and 3) to be bilingual but there is a serious lack of French or bilingual schools in North London or the city. We've registered at L'Ecole Bilingue and will try for Ile des enfants in Kentish Town but are not hopeful of getting into either. We have a French nanny who takes the boys to French playgroups in Muswell Hill and Crouch End, all of which are well attended. I think there is a definite gap in the market. PM me as I would be really interested in getting involved.

Will someone open a spanish school in south london too??

I second a Spanish school too. I have 4 dd's and would love them to be taught in Spanish.

Similar to syl39, i am keen to set up a mandarin bilingual primary school (reception - yr6) in london, it will follow UK curriculum and subjects will be taught in both Mandarin & English. i wonder how many of you will be interested? and which location do you think will have high demand of such school?

I will definitely be interested. My child is 4 and truly bilingual, starting reception this autumn. We r in north London. There r a fair number of Chinese families in wood green.

Having spent 15years working in the education sector in China, including international schools, local schools, and language training schools my partner and I would definitely be interested in a good bilingual Mandarin-English school for both our children's sake and as a great opportunity for an innovative new school in London.

Living in Vietnam and wanting to come back to the UK, but one of my concerns is that my 5 yr old son has 3 hrs a week of Mandarin at an after school club. He loves this and is progressing really well.

I fear that when we come back to the UK it will be difficult to maintain and improve his Mandarin skills. I believe a good knowledge of Mandarin will be a great asset in the future, but to attain the level I mean, I feel that at least 1,500 hrs of study needs to be done. This either means starting early or studying quite a few hours a week. An English - Mandarin bilingual primary school is a must for London.

I understand that there is a good English - Mandarin bilingual school in Hong Kong (can't remember name, but I have a research paper that was conducted on this school), which a number of other bilingual schools, not just English-Mandarin, have used to base their schools on.

The report that I mentioned in my post above can be downloaded from here:

lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/3963

Sorry, link didn't work:

lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/3963

Just wanted to add - while the European School in Culham is closing down, the Europa School (an academy, i.e. no fees) has opened up on the same site, essentially filling the gap that the European School would leave.

The Europa School currently offers the French/English stream, as well as the German/English stream.

Loved reading parts of this thread. But has it gone anywhere? Currently looking for bilingual french schools for my daughter and would love to hear that this has an open date for Sept 2019, maybe? Let me know if still trying to get this sorted?

The London Borough of Harrow has a new bilingual free school which opened last year
www.stjeromebilingual.org - French

And there will be another opening next year
www.newschoolforharrow.org.uk/about - Spanish

They might be able to offer some support/advice for you.

There's an École Jeannine Manuel in London now

Thanks for that. I'm really hoping more state-run bilingual schools because the cost of the private schools is maddening.