Welsh Vs English Medium School

[nw80]

Anyone with experience of sending your children to a Welsh medium school when you and your partner can't speak Welsh? We are trying to decide what to do for our child's nursery application, but are trying to think ahead to secondary school, university, etc.
Thank you

I know that lockdown was very difficult for English speaking parents with children in Welsh medium schools. I was glad we decided on English during that 18 months of home schooling.
I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience on this but my friend’s DS has dyslexia and moved from a Welsh medium to English and they are coping better now.
I don’t think you need to worry about speaking Welsh at university. If they all switched to Welsh medium then they will lose a chunk of profit from overseas students, so a universal language like English will always be spoken.

Thank you for that. Lockdown and learning difficulties are definitely something to keep in mind.
With university, I was more meaning that uni would be in English, so I'm worried that swapping from Welsh secondary to English uni would be hard. (I studied science and thought how much harder it must have been for English second language students, though it's not exactly the same as they wouldn't have grown up in an English majority speaking area like we do)
It seems like such a good opportunity, but I don't want them to be disadvantaged academically

I have a couple of friends who went to Welsh medium school and although their Welsh is fluent, they definitely consider English their first language now as adults. Both went to uni as well and didn't struggle. One has Welsh speaking parents so spoke Welsh at home too, but the other had English speaking parents who felt it was important their DC learnt Welsh but couldn't teach it themselves.

Is Welsh primary and English secondary an option? This worked well for my English speaking kids.

Both ds went to welsh medium primary school but English medium secondary. We did have the choice of welsh medium secondary but went with English. The Welsh medium primary was our local village school and so not really much choice. We are not welsh speaking. They thrived there, we found no issues with the language barrier, at nursery level and early school years i was able to help with reading as it was not hard. Every communication was in English and welsh. They have both done well and eldest ds at an English university. They both speak fluent welsh and that early learning of a new language certainly helped them learn french at secondary school. Many of my friends ds go to the welsh medium secondary school and go on to English university with no issues at all.

If you're planning on staying in Wales for all your child's education I'd go with a Welsh medium school. If you might move to England then possibly not but the advantages to being bilingual would probably still sway be to the Welsh medium school. Bear in mind too, easier to move from the Welsh to the English than the other way around.

Thanks everyone. Lots of positive experiences.

Yeah, we've been wondering about swapping to English secondary. Apparently most of the kids from the local welsh primary (we live in a town, so there are also some English primaries) go to the Welsh secondary in another town. I had a quick look at the Welsh secondary estyn report and it didn't sound amazing (not horrific, but were some recommendations, though I haven't compared to anywhere else). I guess it would be hard leaving friends, but swapping to English is definitely an option.

Long term is definitely something to keep in mind. It's hard to say that we'll be here until education is finished, though we wil be here for the foreseeable at the moment

Ds was in a small year at primary and half went to the welsh secondary and the others to the english. Of those all but ds went into the welsh stream. He made new friends very quickly and it worked well. Friendships do move on and change when they go to secondary school so i would not worry too much.

My son went to Welsh Primary and then English Medium Secondary and I love that he has a great level of fluency in Welsh, but he’s science and maths orientated, so we decided to send him to English school as he can now speak Welsh well.
there is a new website that my friend has gone on called www.welshreading.com to help with the language barrier if you have young children starting Welsh school and you don’t speak Welsh. Might be worth checking out? My friend said it was good…?

Great thanks, I'll check out the website. That's also a good point about stem subjects. We actually just heard today that he got accepted to the Welsh medium nursery, so hopefully all goes well.

My children go to welsh medium school - my DH and I are not fluent welsh speakers. It hasn't hampered them - 10A and 12 A from my niece says so.

My dyslexic niece finds it far easier to read in welsh as it is phonetic with few exception type rules.

When they have needed help they have learned to translate for us.

Being welsh speaking didn't hamper Dr Jamie Roberts at Uni...or Alun Wyn Jones. Welsh medium is a choice that opens up far more opportunities than otherwise.

DD is at WM secondary school in year 7 She’s a total maths and science geek. I’ve no idea why English medium would be considered any better……?

If you can, give your child the gift of a second language - unless your child has learning difficulties that would make them struggle for some reason.

The cognitive abilities are unbelievable, it's really brain training...

In the future if they want to pick up French or Spanish or any other language, they will find it way easier as they will already be used to different language structures, genders, tense and verbs etc

In the future there will be a very competitive labour market - being able to speak any language makes them stand out...

Also, it will be really useful to be able to communicate in a language not widely understood across the globe. "This is dodgy" or "let's go, he's ripping us off" in a niche language may just one day be incredibly useful, who knows?

DH and I speak no Welsh and our kids have done Welsh medium all the way, eldest is early secondary. Eldest is also doing amazingly in French so I do agree with the idea that language begets language.

So far we have had no issues at all and my kids (NT and no LD so I cant comment on those) have done amazingly and it’s not affected their ability to read or write English at all. I am so pleased we went Welsh! All homework is bilingual until the point that h to eh can translate.

If you’re going to stay in Wales then you’re doing them a massive favour if you give them the skill of communicating in Welsh.

All 3 of my kids are in Welsh secondary and I speak some Welsh, their dad speaks none. Hasn't been any barrier to helping with homework etc . The kids are thriving and doing well academically. I agree with pp about second languages. It's so good for them.

Not better, just a better fit for my son. I am first language Welsh, so I don’t think one is ‘better’ than the other. Language (English and Welsh) are not strong points with him, so I wanted him to feel confident in vocab he would need for Uni should he choose to go. He is more confident in English and he loves the sciences and so we came to that conclusion together - it doesn’t mean we look down on Welsh and my other child is in Welsh Medium education and loves it and loves language and is thriving. We need to stop vilifying people for their linguistic choices in education for their children.

Sorry - I must have misread it.

Been told tonight that DD is flying academically
with languages and humanities too so who knows.

Definitely Welsh medium. Read up on the benefits of bilingualism to the brain- It's fascinating stuff. Learning other languages will come much easier to them if they have both Welsh and English. Also, I've met so, so many adults who were raised in Wales that are disappointed that they weren't taught Welsh at school. It's so much easier to learn as a child!

IMO any language is a skill, and why wouldn't you gift your child an extra skill?

Lots of my friends kids went to Welsh schools when they don't speak Welsh.
DD was all set to go to Welsh school at nursery stage but we moved and it just wasn't practical.
I'd choose Welsh depending on where you are. TBH not many people use it around here but I love hearing it

I went to Welsh medium primary and secondary schools, my parents don't speak Welsh. It was fine. I went to university in England and that was fine too.

Being bilingual has helped my career (back in Wales) enormously.

My DC went to Welsh medium primary and secondary schools too, although obviously with Welsh speaking parents. One is now at university in England, and hasn't struggled at all with the switch in languages.

I did A level Welsh in an English medium high school with parents that didn’t speak Welsh.

Went straight from school to local government, then welsh government, national government, NHS and never ever used it (bar the odd bilingual out of office message).

@OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide unfortunately in some parts of Wales local and devolved government don't use Welsh as much as they could. Some areas are far more Welsh though, from the dealings I've had anyway.

I worked in the private sector for 20 years after graduating, mostly in finance and data, and used Welsh as the main language of the workplace every day.

Bear in mind that the majority of children in Welsh medium schools in most (not all) parts of Wales wont speak Welsh at home.
My siblings and I went to Welsh medium education schools with no Welsh as did the majority of my peers. This was at a time when it was much less common. We have all gone on to have successful well paid careers, far above the average. One of my siblings is dyslexic.

However people often talk about the hard benefits of Welsh medium education when I feel the soft benefits are most important to me. A sense of pride in being able to speak my native tongue,.the joy of being able to communicate in a different language, the ability to hold my own and feel on a par with my peers internationally. It's hard to describe but I will forever be grateful to my parents for giving me another language, it's pretty effortless as far as the child is concerned. That gratitude has only increased as I've aged (and realised the slog it takes to learn another language to any degree of fluency!).

I think a lot of the doubts parents feel are because they imagine themselves having to learn through a second language as they have experienced it but it's a completely different experience as a child that has been immersed in the language from a young age.