So the afterschool French lesson was a debacle (excuse pun)... to whom should I complain?

[HuwEdwards]

Lessons are organised by external body through school - inasmuchas the letters offering the lessons were sent from school although our requests for lessons were to be sent to the external body.

Anyway, the lessons directly after school comprised kids from all years and some older boys brought a fart cushion into the class and all hell let loose and from what I can glean from DD, they did absolutely no French whatsoever and the class was abandoned.

Now plainly the company providing French are at fault - but do you think the school has any responsibility?

yes, i think the head should have stepped in before the class was completely abandoned.

what did the french teacher say?

Difficult one, this. A good head would feel responsibility for a person/class they had advertised to the parents of their children & wouldn't want to see any class in thier school degenerate into chaos.
On the other hand, anyone who is charging parents for lessons should be able to control the class, and having the head come out & intervene isn't going to do anything for either their authority or their confidence.
After school clubs of an 'academic' type are always likely to have a substantial proportion of children who are only there because their parents want them to be, not because they want to be, which doesn't help with the discipline problem.

I think this kind of club is probably on the way out anyway - we now longer have one at the school I work at because we now teach French as part of the curriculum.The government position is that a modern foreign language should be taught in all key stage 2 schools by 2010, although they haven't yet said it will be compulsory.
I'd ask your school what plans they have to introduce MFL teaching in the near future.

If you're paying for this class, then the company are probably paying something to the school for the use of their building, so probably not the responsibility of the head. I know that the ballet classes that are held at our school are nothing to do with them and I've never even seen a teacher there. I would complain directly to the French teachers.

Thanks for your responses - I've not complained to anyone yet. I want to see what DD says today when she comes home from school - as to whether anymore is said about it today.

I didn't see the French teacher as DD went into after-school club afterwards, so I've heard this all from her.

How old is she? And is she a reliable witness? I only ask, because my ds isn't and if he told me something like this I'd be a bit careful before I went in all guns blazing! I think you need to check with the school office whether or not he school is involved. At our schoo, for example, some of the clubs are run by the school and are therefore the school's responsibility - others are run by people hiring the hall, so aren't, if you see what I mean?
Could you happen to be around for the next one and sit in a bit?

DD is in Year 2 and a fairly reliable witness. Her story was corroborated by the mother of another child who had been told the same. And tbh, it was the 'gossip' of after school club.

Just not sure whether the school will punish the kids involved (thereby taking some responsibility), or whether I should contact the company delivering the French classes.

Will bide my time till tonight.

My sons did Club Francais or something for a year and didn t learn a bloody word of French. Couldn t even greet, say their name. It was a shambles. And an expensive one. They learned how to make a sock puppet

i do after school clubs and the head teacher is always available if there is any disruption in the class. tbh some children will take the opportunity to muck around and not be willing to learn. i am trained in behaviour management too. half of my job seems to be crowd control which is a shame so i can see why maybe the french leader had trouble.