Which primary schools teach German or French?

[bearandfoxblog]

Hi, we are moving to Edinburgh this summer and I'm trying to find some info which primary schools introduce German in P1 and which do French, without having to look them all up individually. Is there a list somewhere (couldn't find any so far)? If not, could people leave a comment below regarding primary schools they know of? Thanks a million!

Watson's does French and Spanish in the primary school. They teach German but not till S1

Steiner teach both French and German, properly, from the equivalent of p2 I believe. None of the state primaries take it seriously - my DD is in P5, and despite having been taught French since P1, still seems to be learning colours - none of the class can string a sentence together in French as far as I can tell. Very poor.

Watsons start French in P3 (1 x a week) but it's relatively basic - colours, days of the week, talking a bit about yourself etc. I think it then starts a bit nmore in earnest in p4 onwards. No idea when Spanish is an option.

Cargilfield teaches French from P1. By the end of the school (age 13) the standard is high, but in the early years it's a slow start via songs etc. No German at any stage.

Thanks everyone! So it seems that most srart with French, and those that do German don't do so unto later? Reason being we currently live in Germany, where they don't do French at all in primary school. My son speaks fluent English & German, so we thought a school with German may be easier for him than catching up on two years of French (he'd be going in to P3). Bit from what you're saying, it sounds like it's not that much French and he should be able to catch up? Seems easier than limiting ourselves to schools that offer German - it's difficult enough finding an apartment and school without adding extra requirements.

There are a lot of German speaking families at Steiner. And if he's in p3, his fellow students will have been doing French or German for 2 years at most.

Goodness, no, don't worry about it, he'll catch up with P3 French anywhere in about five minutes. (FWIW I joined a class in a school that taught French from age 5, in September when I was 11, knowing none. It was a good school that had taken French seriously by British standards. But I was still caught up by Christmas.)

We've been teaching French in Nursery. Not sure why French but it will be carried over to P1 apparently.

My children learned Italian in P3&4 then it got dropped which I was gutted about as they loved it.

All the state primaries I know of do French, haven't heard of anyone doing German. But it's very light touch - colours, days of the week and je m'appelles. We're not very good at languages I'm afraid and he'll catch up no problem. My DS goes to high school this summer and we've just found out it's compulsory French in S1/2 - no choice of language at all, which I'm not thrilled about.

There's a german church with a bit of a german speaking community around it if you want to keep up the german properly. In general, primary school pupils without another language at home don't have very good language exposure at school here :(

www.allemannfun.org.uk/

Yes, I think I misunderstood the info I read. I thought schools did French or German in P1, but it seems most (if not all) do French, and some offer German in addition from P5.

@badguider Thanks, yes, we know the church - my dad was the minister there in the 80s My Q was less about him keeping up his German (we will be speaking German at home) but more about making it easier on him not having to learn a (for him) third language so soon. But everyone here has reassured me he'd be able to easily catch up on the 2 yrs primary school French! So thank you.

Most schools do some French and a few Spanish and even fewer German. In Scotland, all children are required to be taught one foreign language from nursery and a second foreign language from P5 ( the latter by 2021). If you want to read up on this, search 1+2 languages in Scotland.

However, a lot of schools are struggling to roll this out due to staffing levels and teacher knowledge of the language. Because the provision of languages in primary can be quite sporadic (taught by specialists for some periods and then by class teachers for other periods) and the language knowledge of the class teacher can range from nil to degree level, a lot of material is repeated and he would find it very easy to catch up. In addition to this, the curriculum is so full there is often little time for this.