Debating to enrol son in fully french class or bilingual class

[Mamabear12]

Basically, we are an English speaking family, who want our kids to be bilingual. I am learning French as my kids learn, but it is no where near as fast or as good as my eldest daughter who we have been focusing on. She is now almost 5. My son is 3 and we are due to enrol him to the school for sept 17 start. My question is whether I should enrol first in fully french side verses the bilingual side. The reason is because we are not French speakers, and he gets enough English, I think getting more French would be better for his learning. His sister is in the bilingual stream though, but she also seems to learn languages more at east then her brother. Any opinions?

We went for fully French. The fact that the French school was local and five mins walk away, whereas the bilingual was a good 40mins by bus was also a big factor in our decision. 5 yrs on we are 100% certain we made the right choice for our situation. Ds1 is totally at home with French, having been chucked in the deep end. He's properly bilingual. By comparison, many
of his anglophone peers who went to the bl school are still getting 'catchup' french lessons at school: part of the issue is that they choose to play with other English speakers at school whereas all DSs school friends are French, which has really motivated him to speak French well and increased his exposure to the language. DS2 (CP) is struggling more with French: he's been diagnosed as having a speech delay and TBH I think going to a bl school would just have confused him further. This way it's really clear cut for him: French at school, with friends and the orthophoniste, English at home. Both are good readers in both languages.

Just realised that I'm assuming you are in France? Are you? ;-)

No, we are in England 😃 Thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking fully french is the best. Although, don't think my husband would agree. Both are a five min walk from me and share the same building. R u in France?