From Bilingual school to one langauge

[Bloodyfucksake]

Hi,
DS1 (9) had always been in bilingual education. Last year it was suggested that for secondary school he does an option of part time regular school / part time specialist in his hobby (obsession )

BUT to do this, we had to enroll him into the feeder primary of the particular secondary. Its all one language which he has never had before.

He likes his new classmates and he thinks the teacher is nice and kind. He was positive all week. However, at the end of this first week he has told me he hates it. The work is hard, he misses his friends, he sometimes would prefer to explain things in English and obviously can't now.

Any idea how long it will take for him to feel happier? Anything I can do? I have an appointment with the teacher next week.

Not of going from bilingual school but of children coming to their school with virtually no English. I would say by six months they are virtually fluent. As he is bilingual he is likely to adjust much quicker.

I would try to ignore the bilingual aspect for the moment and concentrate on the friend aspects. Have regular play dates with other children. Ask him/ the teacher what the dc are into. For example ds moved into a Star Wars obsessed class so he needed a crash course in watching the films, which were at the time (yr1) a certificate which we wouldn't probably have chosen to show him. Once he has a few friends the work will probably follow.

It may also reveal that the bilingualism means that academically he has not made as much progress so it is good this has been identified at this stage before secondary if he is going to a non bilingual secondary school.

Thanks shouldwestay yes, his written skills are roughly a year behind. I talked about going in a year behind as he is only one month older than the cut off anyway but the head teacher felt that he should give his correct yeat group a try 'to avoid stigma'.

I've just asked him what they are into in his class and its fortnight I really didn't want to get into that.

Oh dear, Fortnite is hideously addictive and expensive if they find ways to upgrade. Could he maybe watch some of the you tubers playing or play with you/dh? Make sure your credit cards are locked away!

On the plus side their parents might jump at the opportunity to fob their little screen addict off onto you for an afternoon of nerf guns in the woods.

One of our DC moved from bilingual to monolingual (majority language) education a couple of years ago. I was worried about her missing English but it didn’t take her long to adjust. She does a lot of extracurricular activities in English, watches Netflix and reads books in English.

It has done her other language the world of good!