Welsh Medium Schools - Worried. Any experiences?

[Hochocolio]

I'm moving to an area were the best schools are Welsh Medium. I have 2 DC. Eldest is 8 and will be moving to year 4 in September and the youngest is 4 and will be starting reception. Would you take up a place in the excellent Welsh school? Worried about eldest DC more than anything.

@endofjune

I honestly wouldn’t. It’s really hard, because you obviously want your children to go to the best schools, but I think this would just be so isolating and difficult for them.

In what way is it going to be isolating and difficult???

The one thing I would say is to be wary of very tiny schools - they do suit some, but I know a fair number of parents who've moved their dc to larger (still Welsh medium!!) schools to have a larger social circle / more sport opportunities etc.

Mine is seven months so no

I trained as a teacher and did mine in a school with a Welsh ‘stream’ and a number of people from my course did their TP in Welsh speaking schools. I’m totally happy to concede you know a lot more than me but just the same I personally wouldn’t consider this without being fluent in Welsh myself and having a child who was at least able to have a confident conversation.

In the sense that if you can’t speak Welsh and everyone around you is speaking Welsh, it is going to make relationships and education difficult.

TBF the Welsh medium secondary near here are very anti-English speaking, but I think that's because so many parents choose it for the quality of the education, rather than the language. (It's very much the equivalent of going to church to access better schools.) The primaries are much more about carrot rather than stick :)

I guess maybe the difference here is that effectively all primary ed is Welsh medium, so there's loads of non-Welsh speaking parents, and the schools have to cater to that. So fair play could be a very different experience somewhere you can choose either English or Welsh medium. Like I say the Welsh high school here is a lot more hardcore!

What a wonderful thing that this tiny Celtic nation has kept their language alive.

Maybe get this moved to the new Draignet topic?
We need to prove we're using it, and you will get Welsh opinions from Welsh people.

@MrsFin oooh I didn't realise there was a Welsh topic. How can I move my thread? Only just signed up although long time lurker

@PotteringAlong there are 45 million people in Argentina of which at a max 1500 speak Welsh. I would hardly call that a welsh speaking country. Welsh is not a useful international language. If you are going to put that much effort I to learning another language there are many many others to choose from. Greek is less useful than other languages which are more widely spoken however with a population four times the size of Wales and 33 million tourists visiting (rather than the 1 million that visit Wales) I would say even that is that more useful.

I think learning Maths in Welsh can be more difficult than it is in English. An ex colleague of mine had her daughter in a Welsh medium school and transferred her around 8 or 9 and never regretted it.

If you want your children to be bilingual then there's really no better way than to have them fully immersed in the language. It's useful for public sector jobs later on.

Not to mention the fact that Greeks speak Greek - not all Welsh people speak Welsh. You don't need it. Sorry OP not trying to derail your thread

Both ds went to welsh medium school, eldest joined in year 4 and was fluent by year 6. It was total immersion and very positive. However although we had the option of welsh medium secondary he would have struggled with learning in welsh at that level so went into the welsh stream of the local secondary where he could do some but not all subjects in welsh. It has been a very positive experience. Youngest ds only ever taught through the medium of welsh. We are an English speaking family.

@whatthejiggeries but you don’t just learn stuff you need to get by - you don’t go for the lowest common denominator. By that reasoning no one would every learn a musical instrument because, you know, clarinet-shmarinet.

You learn stuff to enhance your life, your experiences, to enrich your world. And if you are Welsh, living in wales, then being fluent in Welsh will do just that.

In my experience it's quite usual for non Welsh-speaking parents to send children to Welsh schools but only if they start in the system and are familiar with the language from an early age. I've heard of parents who send their children to Welsh secondaries having not had any Welsh medium education, but that's unusual and only where there are surplus places. I think there's some kind of immersion programme but not sure how successful it is.

Your reception aged child will be fine as it’s not unusual for children to not speak any Welsh at that age, but I think your older child will struggle having had little exposure previously.

I think it also depends on the parents' motivation. Seems like te OP's motivation is to avoid the "bad" English school rather than any particular support for the Welsh language.

@Buggerthebotox my motivation is mostly about sending them to the best schools. But they both have a Welsh Dad who has always felt it a shame he doesn't speak the language. It would be nice for them to speak it I think. If it was just youngest DS I wouldn't hesitate

My young relatives went to an English speaking primary and then opted for Welsh speaking secondary in order to avoid the awful local English speaking secondary.

Worked well and being Welsh speaking has come in useful when it came to applying for jobs.

Go into it with a positive attitude and I'm sure it will work out well.

I had family members with non Welsh speaking parents start Welsh Medium School at secondary level (so age 11) because the English speaking secondary wasn't good. Like the OPs children they knew a little Welsh but not loads. They had coaching to catch up and they did well, got good A levels, did degrees and are now fully fluent in Welsh, which has been helpful in the job market in Wales. This was over 30 years ago when there wasn't as much emphasis on Welsh too

I would also say that given the way (both English and Welsh) politics are right now, I'm very happy my dc speaks Welsh. It's also as a pp says obviously very useful from a jobs POV.

Bloody marvellous .it hasn't died out

I'd say put them both in the Welsh medium school (won't be first time school has encountered this situation, we have a lot of polish children coming in - various year groups - who speak no English but after a couple of years are fluent in English as well as having learnt Welsh at the same time - English medium school). You can then also enrol on to courses with learnwelshcymru for yourselves so that you are able to help a bit at home.