If your child was the only English child...

[ALovelyBunchOfCoconuts]

Would it be an issue for you?

DD (4) is starting school Sept and we had her first intake day today where she met her teacher and peers and had a play.

None of the children in her class spoke English. The parents were also pretty vague in their understanding.

DD will therefore be the only English child in her class (also the only one from her preschool setting, in a faith school which was our third choice)

Does anyone think this will be an issue? Do I need to ask the school about any provisions they have to assist the foreign children? Will DD get left out because she is English? Am I thinking about this too much?

Its similar here where DS will go to school, the postcode is targetted by schemes like AimHiger etc because of the low aspirations and amt of families where noone has been to uni etc, luckily there are also a lot of immigrant families here now, so where very few of the English only speaking kids have ever had anyone in their families go on to third level education, the EASL kids include a more mixed bag when it comes to family academic background. Which is a good thing for DS IMO.

My DC went to a homogenous, white, middle class, church of England school in a very expensive part of London. Their teachers really didn't have to work very hard and the 100% or close scores in the SATs result said a great deal more about the input of parents and the amount of tutoring that was going on than it did about the quality of teaching and learning.

We thought we did the right thing at the time, many many years ago. Now I'm not so sure.

Remember that your child will have one hour with you in the morning, four and a half hours in the evening, all day at weekends 52 weeks a year and is only at school for about 38 weeks of the year for 7 hours a day anyway. Take out break time, lunch time, registration time, assembly time and divide the rest by 30 and your child will have about five minutes a day, if that, of the teacher's dedicated attention.

Schools provide the guidelines; parents provide the means and the encouragement and the time and the nurture. Just because other families are not English doesn't mean they aren't providing all of that.

PS: I'm very white, very middle class, very English. My father came to the UK as a refugee, my grandfather came to this country as a refugee, my grandmother's grandparents came to this country as refugees. My husbands family are almost entirely indigenous (except for one French great grandparent). Guess which one of us had the privileged childhood.

It depends on whether the other children are primarily of a single no-English language group. A friend's DD's reception class was primarily Polish and her DD has felt very isolated socially - she's never asked to parties or on playdates and in the playground her classmates don't involve her (they all speak Polish in the playground).

Sorry if I wasn't politically correct in my terminology.

The children are mostly all Polish/Lithuanian/Latvian.

And the class is a relatively small class of about 28 I think.

The session was intimate enough for me to be able to pick out and English-speaking families.

I am aware that in school the language differences will be unlikely to cause huge issue educationally but I do worry about integration/play.

In my area, the European parents stick together, attend nurseries with EASL staff and don't integrate with the local bristish families.

This is not inner city London where there are loads of different nationalities wherever you look.

I didn't have an oppotunity to speak to the teacher as the teacher was off sick. I wanted to catch the headmistress but she was absent too.

Yes I did view the school before the results, before I made my decisions on preferences etc.

I got a relatively good enough impression of the school. good enough for it to be third choice. Was disappointed with the results and am on waiting list for higher preferences but won't stand a cat in hell's chance.

I knew there were EASL children there as I met a few but I never anticipated for one second that DD could ever be the ONLY english one.

I have no problems with her integratiing with children from Poland or wherever, there are a couple in her preschool class but only 3 out of 25. not 28 to 1.

Like many other responses I wouldn't be concerned if my child was the only child in the class with English as their first language if the rest of the class was made up of a mix of languages / backgrounds. However if the rest of the class were all of a similar cultural background then I would be concerned in relation to the friendship aspects, academically I don't think it will make any difference (though I have no experience of working in a school)

depends on the mix really. if the eal children were from many backgrounds then there is more likely to be mixing as ther is no one big group and english is the commonn language. if the majority were from the same culture then I would worry about being left out. being left out though can happen in any group.

my experience of polish and lithuanian families locally (NB my DD is too young for me to have considered school yet but I work in the health service and see a lot of them) is that their English becomes excellent very fast, they tend to be hugely motivated and have much much higher educational aspirations for their children than the majority of local "english" (white, working class, ex coal mining town with generations of unemployment) families. Certainly round here I'd be vastly happier with DD as the only english child in a class of polish kids than I would in a class full of some difficult local kids from certain notorious families/estates

Will she really be the only one? I'd imagine that would make her feel very isolated.

A friend stayed on in London when we all ditched it pre school-age years. Her son was the only Native English speaker in a Bangladeshi community. No one wanted to play with him. He invited people back for tea and the invites were never reciprocated. My friend used to pass by the school and see him sitting alone on a bench at playtime. I have no idea why she put him through this. I think it's cruel.

Another worry is the level of teaching. Foundation & KS1 teachers will have to focus on teaching ESL. Since she already knows it - what will she be learning? If she isn't being stretched - will she get bored or play up or retreat into herself?

On the bright side, she might learn Polish/Lithuanian/Latvian, make lots of friends, learn a lot about other cultures and have a whale of a time. Sleepless in Derbyshire makes a good point about work ethics. But if she does end up there, I'd watch how she gets on very closely. If she mentions friends and they invite her round, if she seems to enjoy school, she's fine. If she plays up or doesn't talk with enthusiasm about the other children, I'd get out.

I'd move heaven and earth to have my children in a school where they fitted in and were surrounded by children who were at a similar academic level. These are the formative years and they can never get them back.

I'd be anxious, yes,

DD is one of about four or five native English kids in her class. The others are all from different countries. She loves the fact her friends are from all over the world. They all piacked up English very quickly. But the mix is important, I think - dd is upset when, for example, a French child plays with a French child and she's left out, so a minority of one would unnerve me.

ALovelyBunch......assuming you live in the UK then yes I would be concerned.

racingheart, everything i am concerned about you have mentioned.

with one teacher and one TA i worry how they can accomodate all the ESL children while DD will be sitting there wondering whats goinng on.

she is a clever ho needs to be challenged and kept busy and socialisation is a key factor for us. she has been a shy and clingy child and has grown up with no peers until preschool. it is so important to me that she has friends and feels like she can have friends round and go to friends houses.

there are positives but thet are outweighed.

** clever child who

If you pick a Catholic school, you'll tend to get churchgoing Catholics. In some areas the RC congregations are predominantly Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian. In all honesty, that wouldnt concern me. Maybe go along to the local parish and see if there's a children's liturgy where your little one can get to meet some of her classmates to be?

your dd is starting reception?

what exactly do you think they do?

it is like nursery, they do a lot of learning through play, learning vocab through play, exploring the world, developing motor skills, curiosity, looking at themselves and their families and differences with other families and ten mins a few times a day on the carpet with the white board, first of all learning phonic sounds and then later writing simple sentences.

The majority is independent or child led activities.

She wont be sitting anywhere wondering what is going on, she will be playing with sand water dressing up blocks, colouring, painting etc.

SOcialisation, kids dont even notice these differences you are talking about. they just see other children. the only way they notice is if you point them out. words are a small part of communication. body language, gesture, interaction in games, playing together in sand/water, copying each other, working together to build something, etc this is what children in reception do, nothing is stopping her having friends.

and the other children will very quickly learn English and realise English is for school and other language is at home.

the reason the Bengali kids didnt invite you back after school is because after school they usually go to mosque!

Like I said my kids are in mixed schools. my dd1 is in reception and never been invited to a friend from schools party or to their house, doesnt stop her playing with them at school and getting on with them etc. and she also has extra curricular activites where she socialises. I dont feel she is missing out, neither does she.

It will be fine in the short-term, so I wouldn't worry on that score. As others have commented, it is the out-of-school socialising that may be affected, depending on whether the parents stick together or are keen to socialise. You will get a good idea of how that works out as the year progresses - and it actually won't matter at all until your dd is older.

My dd was at a school with a very wide catchment. Playdates were few and far between, though everyone had parties. I did move her in Y2 because I felt her social needs were not going to be met very well as she got older. She has gone to a brilliantly social school near our home - it's worked out better than I could have hoped, and the social side is obviously very very important to her.

So I wouldn't worry about your dd starting, but I would stay on the waiting list for your first and second choice, and move your child when you get a place.

I have put in a revised application to try and get my third choice, which is now looking the better option. there are two spaces available and we will hopefully find out soon.

i have decided it really wont suit my daughter.

nailak, yes she is starting reception. i am well aware that children can happily play alongside without needing to converse but I have watched my DD play at preschool and conversation is a massive part of hers and her friends' play time. they chat away fabulously. I cant imagine that a bunch of four year olds will never speak to each other when they play.

in our preschool, the polish mothers speak together in polish, invite their children round to play and to their parties. never the english children. in my town it seems very segregated.

thank you all for your input.

I would be really concerned, and wanting to speak to the school asap to find out how they intended to deal with the situation to ensure that your DD's needs are met.

Are you likely to get into one of your higher preferences later in the year? Can you pay for her to private?

Oh x-posts.

Good luck with getting into the other school.

I initially read your e mail and thought no.I wouldn't have sent my children to a school as the only english speaker.But i went to school with the children of Polish and Lithuanian immigrants.They were the brightest and most academic in the class [and mine was a catholic grammer school].Most have gone on to have stellar careers.In your position i would try the school for a year and see how your child does both academically and socially.Learning to mix with different cultures is a major advantage,as is listening to other languages.

We got the other school. Just had an email.

There will be lots of ESL children in this school too so she will still have all the benefits of learning from them and listening to their language but will also have the social benefit of going to school with some friends from preschool too.

Oh that is fantastic news :) I bet you are so relieved!

Yes it has been a stressful weekend with emails pinging back and forth. I had to send my form over email and it took four attempts to get it there so I was panicking a bit!

I thought it would be the end of the week before we knew but the LA have dealt with it so quickly, I am impressed.

Now to find out what I need, and when the info day is.