New from the US/activities for kids

[SoCalMom]

I'm going to move to Cambridge from the US with my husband and two kids this summer. My 12-year-old daughter is currently involved with playing on a basketball team and playing saxophone in a beginning band. Are these activities that are available in the area? I see things about netball for girls, but not basketball. Are girls not allowed to play basketball in the UK? Also, my daughter prints in school, but does not do joined writing. Is this going to be a problem? Lastly, and sadly enough, her schools in the US have not offered any foreign languages. It seems like in the schools there all the children are involved in learning French, which seems great, but I'm worried about how she'll join the class when the others are years ahead of her. We will be living quite close to Parkside Community College, so I'm still hoping for my lucky stars to align and that she'll get a Year 8 (I think - she'd be in 7th grade in the US) placement for the fall there. If anyone has any information on any of these questions, I'd appreciate it.

Hi there,
My son has just joined year 7 with no French at all (have moved from abroad). Its been difficult but not impossible. Quite a lot of the other kids seem to be at a pretty basic level. The school haven't done much to help him catch up though.
Shouldn't think the handwriting will be a problem.
Sorry don't know about the sports - we're new too.

have you got an address already - eg a rental agreement - if so you could apply now for the school - there is a fair amound of movement so you could be ok - chesterton school is well thought of now as well. 1st of september is the key date for school years - so provided she is not 13 before then she will be in Y8.

Most children will only have done large amounts of french in Y7 -they do some in primary school but it does differ and to be honest in my view its not done to a very high level in general
Basketball isn't played loads in general in the UK - and girls do tend to play netball more - its a fairly big sport here - but there might be oppertunities for basketball
Music loads of music going on in Cambridge but don't have any specfic infomation for saxaphone
they start joined writing quite early in the UK -my DS is quite a bit younger than 12 and has started on and is but so long as it can be read I don't think it would be a major issue

Thank you both for the information. I'm happy to hear that stepping into the French program might not be a concern. I'll look into Chesterton as an alternate school.

Don't know about Parkside but Chesterton seems to have some good music going on with an orchestra, jazz band and wind band - I think. They have a sports centre on site but don't know about basketball. Is that helpful?

Yes, that is helpful. I'm going to have to look a lot closer at Chesterton I think.

I wouldn't worry about the French at all. My daughter has been theoretically studying French since in nursery at the age of three, she barely knows how to say please and thank you. I think they just endlessly sing Frere Jacque!

There is a little bit of a basketball scene in the UK, and I think it has grown a little in popularity since the Olympics. It is worth having a thorough look around. It tends not to be well advertised. My daughter (aged 11) doesn't play, but as an American myself I've looked around for basketball games to watch. My finding was that it was mainly youth leagues ? this is when we lived in London but there may well be something in Cambridge also.

This might be a good place to start for basketball www.cambsbasketball.org.uk/