Cardibach, the Welsh issue would not be an issue at all if it was optional. My beef with it is that it is compulsory, as though no place in the world except here exists, since the time it demands therefore limits time available for the learning of skills and knowledge from other subjects.
Wales is a fine place but it is also a very small place in terms of the world and even in terms of it being part of Britain's economy and realistically DD is more likely to use skills learned in something like History throughout the rest of her life than she is to need Welsh. Imagine you were living in Barcelona and your child was obliged to learn Catalan at the expense of another subject. Yes, Catalan is handy if you plan to stay put for the rest of your life, although Barcelona is part of Spain and it is perfectly possibly to get by with just Spanish, but if you are not definitely living in Catalonia later in life then speaking Catalan fluently is not necessarily an educational priority. How is Wales different?
Like you, I have been an English teacher (English as an academic subject and TEFL) and I do agree that learning a language - any language - improves your own English. However, in terms of preparing children to be confident citizens of an increasingly fluid world, we would be better making that other language something that would open as many doors for them as possible. Wales is a tiny place and it is also an English-speaking country and to pretend speaking Welsh matters as far as anyone outside Wales is concerned would be blinkered nationalism, surely?
I've lived in many countries and I have no time for nationalism particularly. Everyone seems to think the country they were born in is the best one in the world without having the insight to wonder if there's a connection between the fact that this country is great and the fact that they come from this country. I choose to live in Wales but the reality is not that it is the most amazing country ever in the history of the entire world, despite what the Welsh government and the crowds of rugby supporters who have never lived anywhere else think.
Looking at it even from the perspective of a teenager who plans to stay in Wales forever and has no interest in looking wider, the system still doesn't necessarily work except for the favoured few. Ironic - we all know it's a good thing to break down barriers to communication yet here we actually make them taller by legal insistence that a language only a minority are fluent in becomes an enormous barrier. We have bilingual schools which upskill (in Welsh) a minority but the reality is that the Welsh education system does not have the infrastructure to create a level playing field by giving all children in Wales the opportunity of being taught in Welsh-language only schools (and therefore to have access to the widest choice of jobs in the Welsh public sector as adults). To promote bilingual education as something that all parents should aspire to is disingenuous because, quite simply, the government cannot provide the service for all children as the Welsh-speaking Science, Maths, PE, RE, IT etc. teachers are not out there in sufficient numbers. I wouldn't hold my breath until that happens, either....
Meeting new legal requirements for bilingualism costs us a fortune in time and other resources at work, despite the fact that English is widely spoken and understood in Wales. The insistence on bilingualism is not meeting a need - it's creating one, and at the expense of funding that could go into other elements of schools, hospitals, police or social services. As an anthropologist I'd say that's great but as an onlooker who has no stake in defending the bilingualism of anyone I hold dear, it looks crazy...and it is being done with my taxes!
Sorry if this comes across to you as Welsh bashing but to me it is horses for courses. If your horse runs well on one track, fine, go for it, but don't stop mine doing what's right for her. Insisting on Welsh at GCSE, to me, seems parochial and small-world - it is the Welsh Government's job to do its best for children in Wales but surely not at the expense of narrowing their educational/career options more than those of other British children for reasons which smack of propaganda.