So... Welsh. Why?

[gaelicsheep]

This is a thread to pick up a discussion that began on another thread about Welsh medium education. It isn't about Welsh medium. It's about compulsory Welsh to 16 in all other schools. It is hard as a non Welsh person to complain about this without sounding xenophobic so I am merely opening the floor if anyone is interested.

Would it be really cheeky of me to point all of you over to my survey on Media/Non-Member Requests? It's to do with bilingualism, so might be interesting...

(I know it's cheeky.)

WeegieMum - this area is very much English speaking. There is only one Welsh medium school for miles around and I've never heard Welsh spoken anywhere except in DS's school. So he is in the absolute norm for the area. Hence my questions about the value of so much Welsh in school. The foreign country feeling comes from the Government not the locals IYSWIM.

Yes btw the switch from Scottish to Welsh was awful as DS had to skip a year and is now the youngest in his class. All told he has dealt with this move amazingly well.

Btw, from what little I know of Gaelic and Welsh I can see similarities. Although the spellings are obviously totally different the sane principles seem to apply eg changing first letters and sounds according to whether noun is the subject or object, etc. I think - could be very wrong there!

same principles

I see your issue if it's a non-bilingual area. My eldest started s hool inthe Outer Hebriides, and I have a feeling the Gaelic community is much more integrated - in Glasgow, despite some politicised bods, we're part of a "scene" in the community, with drama, music etc (I've got dc playing pipes, accordion, fiddle, drums and all on piano too) in a traditional, cultural landscape.

I'm just imagining my (just borderline dyslexic) dd1 having to start to spell it "ysgol" when she's currently happy with "Sgoil". Funnily, ecole in French is different enough that's she's fine. In fact, her French is much better than mine was after 8 months at high school. The school encourage very high aspiration in languages, though, and due to personal circumstances our dc are also (rusty but) conversational in Spanish.

Weegiemum, you're making me homesick again . You know we wrestled with what to do back home about Gaelic medium. I really really liked the idea, and much of that was because not only gaelic but also traditional music was ONLY taught in the Gaelic school. I so wanted DS to have those chances, but in the end it would have meant sending him to school in town away from all his local pals, so we decided no. It is such a shame that only a select few get those chances.

I don't know what happens here with music for example. I must say for a supposedly musical country I see/hear very little evidence of it.

My dd1 started school in the same building as her peers (wheyey it was a big p1, there were 5!) though she was the only one who went into GMU.

We moved to Glasgow when she was going into p2, dh into last year of Sgoil Araich and dd2 had a year to go (where we lived in Harris she'd have had 2 afternoons a week in Rionneagan Beag - wee stars- that was a playgroup for age 2-3).

I couldn't put a p2, totally immersed in GM, into a O2 in English medium, she'd sink as she only read Gaelic! So on our move we were really lucky to get her a place at the Gaelic bunsgoil in Glasgow. Ds went to the nursery, followed by dd2.

Now I've got a p5, p6 and s1 (now in Ardsgoil) kids who are totally fluent (I realised recently I only know if they're using bad langua ge!!) despite the fact I speak limited, taught by their school, and dh no, ghaidhlig, my 3 dc are totally fluent. Recently we were at a wedding and the grooms mum is a native speaker. My dc chatted away all night - apparently it totally made her day!! They speak it pretty much exclusively (except to me and dh) on our holidays to our house in the hebrides. Very popular with our elderly neighbour!

They might never use it. But I can see how it's helping my dd1 with French, and biligualism also has been shown to boost maths and music.

As I've said before - our kids are very musical. Dd1 (13) plays Accordion and piano. Ds (11) plays piano, drums and chanter (for pipes). Dd2 (9) plays fiddle and piano. I'm planning on having a ceilidh band!!)

Also, dd1 who has now done a couple of years of French at school can actually hold a (fairly simple) reasonable conversation with a girl at church who recently arrived from the Congo. She speaks little English, so dd1's ability in French is helping her fit in!!

Re the music, it is a musical country but different from say Ireland in that it's less staged for the tourists. When I moved to England I was startled by how ignorant the children in schools were, for example, of singing in harmony. Even the Y6es had no idea how to manage it, whereas when I was at school in Wales, we started two part singing in Infants. And our junior school could actually make decent noises on recorders rather than the piercing shrieking I encountered when I started teaching in England. On teacher training in Swansea, the three teachers I had placements with played an instrument and used to sing quite confidently with their classes and the children, including the boys, sang unashamedly and with massive gusto. This was so different to the schools I taught at here where I had to fight against school singing being seen as an embarrassing chore by the adults as well as the children. The first time I ran a choir at my first school, out of 200 children, 12 of them turned up, none of them boys, as opposed to the Swansea choir which had 60 children I'm it. It's just something ingrained in them in Wales, so it is a musical country. It's just a natural part of life rather craic staged in pubs.

I think that might be where we suffer for being in quasi England. No sign of musical training at DS's school. It seems very low priority indeed.

That's really sad :(

I grew up in the Vale - hardly the Welshest of areas. The school needs a kick up the bottom.

Yet according to the prospectus music figures quite highly, that's one reason we picked it. I guess said musical member of staff must have left. We tried to have DS join recorder club and it was cancelles due to lack of interest, ie only he signed up. The school concert and carol service were "sung" along to a CD, not even a piano or organ accompaniment. I am very musical so it grieves me.

It grieves me too, the way music is being shunted sideways like it's something irrelevant which has to be fitted in somehow. I'm sure there are studies proving that singing together from an early age is hugely beneficial for school and adult communities and for children's mental well being. I got my first teaching job on account of my music qualifications - they needed a music co coordinator. When I left six years later, I was replaced by a generic NQT and they've been singing to CDs ever since. Don't even sing in Assembly any more. It's so wrong.

When I say no one spoke Welsh I mean No one. I heard a north Welsh visitor speak Welsh to me once in 18 years.

out of 1200 DCs at school 1 girl in the sixth form spoke Welsh, she had a hyphenated wonderful Welsh name, that certainly wasn't local to those parts. My friends were Jones, Evans and Davis or were English incomers like me who had arrived as toddlers with welsh development fund or local government jobs.

I get the feeling very few people came from other parts of Wales, Sheep farms and local shops and garages tended to be handed down the family line. For whatever historical reason, speaking Welsh was not part of that long line of local residents traditions. Even the residents of the old peoples home never spoke in Welsh, nor the old chaps standing on the street corner or drinking in the pub.

I'm sorry if people don't believe me and I know the Welsh assembly are doing their best to insist everyone in Wales needs Welsh to feel Welsh, but honestly there are places it is being parachuted in where it doesn't belong.

As for music, I think that's luck where ever you live.

We had great concerts at my Welsh primary, due to a very musical deputy head. Every year he tried to teach us the Welsh national anthem and each year he failed (He and the other male teacher at school did speak Welsh, they used it when they didn't want us to overhear).

our secondary music teachers just did the min necessary to keep their jobs, not inspiring at all.

Here in England DD1 never stops singing, great Y6 teacher did music at primary, a very keen church choir master who is always organising things and a very active secondary school music dept.

Sadly, despite their best efforts DD2 plays sport instead.

Hotair, I'm gkad you have found a good school, but oerhaps your experience illustrates the problem.

There just isn't the money, the skilled staff or the resources to duplicate everything to offer a real choice of EM or WM school to everyone.

Chepstow, is surely an area where many people don't want WM as Hobson's choice because, quietly, EM is being sidelined and allowed to go down hill.

Ofsted is certainly not immune to political interference, Im certain it's Welsh equivalent isn't either.

To be fair it was almost impossible to make the right choices about schooling. It was so hard to find somewhere to live before we moved down, and without an address we couldn't enrol DS at a school. We were also moving in the middle of the school year. So we ended up plumping for a school that sounded OK that was in the area we thought we'd want to end up living. We were out of the catchment at first when we finally found a place to live, but have now moved into the catchment. So the whole process was a total nightmare. I couldn't visit any schools due to the distance we were moving, we just had to choose on paper.

We didn't "dismiss" the local Welsh school, it is just with having to jump up a whole school year we felt that plunging DS into another language as well would be far too much. I don't regret that, and if that school is better resourced than the others in the area then that is a failing of the Welsh Government. It is also not particularly local to us.

And now he has settled we cannot move him again. We did consider it, but many schools in this area have appalling Estyn reports. We have since found that many parents shun this particular school, but we have found it OK - despite my gripes. I had my gripes about DS's school back in Scotland as well, believe me. This school is better than that one.

Oh I don't doubt that. Unfortunately our local council has been singled out as failing on education. If we'd known that before, we quite possibly wouldn't have moved here.

I think education in Wales has suffered since devolution. They're sliding down international tables. Budgets are finite and if you have free prescriptions for all, something has got to give.

hotair - I'm not talking about WM education at all here on this thread. You're right, I've checked that site and the WM school is not much better resourced per pupil. As you say it isn't all about resources, it's about staff commitment too. But have you read the whole thread, because I had questions which have been answered and I feel happier about the Welsh language thing now. You seem to be answering an argument I have never made!

I would also like to think I took the decisions I believe were right for my son. Moving a 6 year old up a whole school year when he's only been at school for 2 terms is no small thing.

Startail ....You say that no one you knew spoke Welsh but then you go on to mention people who did in fact speak Welsh. ie two of the teachers. So there probably was quite a few people that spoke Welsh there and it is not the case as you said, that no one speaks Welsh in your area. Not that it really matters, just that you say one thing and then say another. As you were an English incomer, do you think that maybe your feelings about Wales and the Welsh is probably not as strong as those of us who are Welsh. You also said that Powys was invented when you were a girl which of course it wasnt. It has been Powys since the 500 to 900. Do you actually live in Wales now? You said that you do not like going home now? I think that living by the border is going to be alot more "English" influenced anyway as there is a higher proportion of incomers living there and it is not the same as living further west.
Some of you have mentioned the lack of music in schools. In the majority of Welsh schools there is a very very strong musical driven ciriculum. Our Eisteddfords are very popular and all children take part in them (if they want). We have produced alot of famous singers, harpists,poets etc. These Eisteddfords are part of our culture.

Not all areas in Wales are totally Welsh speaking but you will often find Welsh speakers all over Wales not just in mid to north Wales. Cardiff and Swansea has its fair share of them as do alot of places I have visited.
To be perfectly honest if you move into Wales and dislike the language or the fact that Welsh is taught in schools then you probably would have been better not moving there in the first place and done more homework. Alot of people find that the "Wales" of their summer holidays is not the same as the "Wales" that we live in once the "season" is over and the holiday makers have once again gone home. We are a proud nation with alot of wonderful history and traditions.