Moving from Scotland to South East Wales - how much Welsh language is taught?

[sagecat]

Do primary children have all lessons in Welsh or just some each day or a few hours a week? My little girl will be starting in primary one and will not know a single word or Welsh - i'm a bit worried.

Most schools are English speaking. They do an odd bit of Welsh in year one, but it's counting to 10, colours, that kind of thing. And it's just interspersed with other stuff so there's nothing heavy about it.

Really, don't worry, it's lovely.

Whereabouts are you coming to???

There are some schools which are taught in Welsh, but the majority are English. Some English speaking parents choose to send their kids to Welsh schools from a very early age so that they can be bilingual, but you'll have a choice.

where are you planning on moving to?

If she is in an English language school then Welsh lessons will be very short. DH teaches 10 mins x3 and a half hour session during a teaching week in a primary school.

She will be fine. Please don't worry.

Thanks all, we will be based near Usk I think - i'm looking forward to it, my DH says its a lovely area. I'm going to visit the area soon.

Usk is a lovely area.

why not pop onto the local council webite and see what details they have on local schools?

Oooh, Usk is lovely.

I hope it goes well.

Welsh is a part of the curriculum and is compulsory til age 16. Unless your children have attended welsh medium nursery they will attend an english speaking school. Welsh is taught as an incidental part of lessons eg at registration checking if they are dinner /sandwiches or cinio/brechdanau or they do the weather, numbers counting and simple classroom commands eg welcome, hello children, sitdown etc. Most of not all children attending these schools have english spoken at home so they know the absolute minimum amount of welsh. I live about 20 miles from Usk and dont speak welsh at home, my children cope fine. I imagine your experience will be similar. For info it will continue in secondary and all children will do a minimum of 50% gcse in Welsh

What do you mean, 50% gcse in Welsh?

They don't do half their gcses in Welsh?

not where I live, except in Welsh medium secondary schools.

I think she means will have to do the eqivalent of half a gcse in Welsh as a subject. I think it has to be studied and examined up to gcse level.

When I did GCSEs I had the opption to do Welsh/IT half and half to make up 1 gcse I think ... twas a long time ago though so I might not be remembering that correctly