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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

DD won't be able to take MFL as option now.....sad.... :-(

41 replies

hampshiremum321 · 04/05/2017 14:07

DD's school does a 3 year GCSE so they choose options in Year 8. After much angst, she chose Art, Textiles, Geography and Italian. She loved the sound of the language and for the past 3 months has been practicing on Duolingo on a daily basis in preparation for September.

We have now been informed that they are not running Italian as only 5 pupils signed up and it is not financially viable. Also, French and Spanish are now full so no longer options, and DD has no interest in German. So this means she misses out on doing a MFL! We are gutted, she feels as if she has done all her home studying for nothing.

Not many options open to her now - and she has to choose by tomorrow! Basically Computer Science and RE are what's left. She is too upset to choose :-(

Has something similar to this ever happened to anyone else?

OP posts:

halcyondays · 04/05/2017 14:10

Why doesn't she want to do German?

ASDismynormality · 04/05/2017 14:11

Can you call the local colleges and ask if they can offer Italian as an evening class, it seems such a shame to drop the language.

ASDismynormality · 04/05/2017 14:12

Also I would encourage her to choose German if she does enjoy languages.

requestingsunshine · 04/05/2017 14:14

That sounds really unfair. If they offered the course as an option and are now taking it away then she should have been given her second choice for that option. Failing that, surely those 5 pupils could be slotted into a french or spanish class somewhere as it is the school that is removing the option.

Can you go in an speak to the head teacher and see what can be done? You never know there may be a slot that has become available in another language class.

Bringmesunshite · 04/05/2017 14:17

I'd encourage her to do German and keep up the Duolingo if she wants to.

TipTop333 · 04/05/2017 14:20

Push for her to be fit into another languages class. Say she is considering taking languages further - A Level etc. Say you would like her to have an EBacc. It sounds to me like they are being unreasonably unaccommodating of these 5 pupils. And I say this as a secondary teacher!

TipTop333 · 04/05/2017 14:20

Echoing the others though, German is a good language. Get her to have a look on duolingo.

BertrandRussell · 04/05/2017 14:23

What was her extra choice in case one of the ones she wanted wasn't available?

WhatHaveIFound · 04/05/2017 14:27

That sounds really unfair. My DD's Spanish class has only 7 students and a friend of her's is in a music class of 2!

I don't see why they can't run it with 5. If not i'd encourage her to do German and study Italian at home. Maybe there's an evening class she could do near you?

Laniakea · 04/05/2017 14:48

if she wants to do a language go for German.

It can be a lottery what they end up doing (half the year got to do Spanish & French the other half German & French at KS3 at dd's, it was totally random where you were allocated & they couldn't switch over for GCSE) & under subscribed courses are often cancelled ... e.g. dd wanted to do textiles but there weren't enough to run it. They call them preferences at dd's school for exactly that reason. Disappointing for your dd but not uncommon.

Original poster

hampshiremum321 · 04/05/2017 14:52

To be honest, she was never that keen on languages. Didn't like French a huge amount. So it was a happy surprise when she developed an interest in Italian. I might possibly have been able to convince her to take Spanish or possibly carry on with French because of the similarities with Italian, but not sure I could convince her to do German. I do like the idea of her carrying on independently or with an evening class though.
I had a meeting with the deputy head yesterday, but they are not going to run it for 5 people. As for her 2nd choice options, most of the subjects are full now.....
Completely unfair as the school really pushed languages

OP posts:

BertrandRussell · 04/05/2017 15:03

So presumably she didn't put another language as her emergency choice?

Clavinova · 04/05/2017 15:33

Do you know what other languages the 'would-be' Italian teacher teaches at the school? Surely the school were not expecting 30 pupils to sign up for Italian - would they have run the class with 15 pupils? Why can't the school split a Spanish or French class into two classes of 16/17 instead?

Original poster

hampshiremum321 · 04/05/2017 15:49

We had 4 option blocks & we had to choose 1 subject per block. No option of "emergency choice", basically if subject over or undersubscribed & you don't get your choice, you have to choose from what is left and has spaces. A bit rubbish I know. As for Italian teacher, I don't know what else they teach - but they would have considered running it if 10 or more pupils chose it.... So frustrating 😠

OP posts:

Clavinova · 04/05/2017 16:07

So what will the 'Italian' teacher do with their free teaching time? Why can't they teach French or Spanish to a group of 10 + pupils instead?

LIZS · 04/05/2017 16:15

Do they offer Latin which may be of interest and useful? Dd couldn't take Italian as well as French and German , timetabling could not accommodate, the same teacher teaches Spanish so his time was required for that. It is relatively easy to find a language course later on, even at degree level. In the meantime try futurelearn as they offer online modular language courses for which you can buy completion certificates. I'll ask dd later what app she is using for self taught Spanish (which she wasn't keen on when she had the opportunity at school).

noblegiraffe · 04/05/2017 16:34

It's possible that the Italian teacher won't be going spare but will be teaching drama or geography or any other subject instead, or they may be making redundancies.

Janek · 04/05/2017 16:40

Can i also point out that you can't automatically teach/speak french or spanish, just because you can teach and speak italian...

putthehamsterbackinitscage · 04/05/2017 16:55

Whilst it's not what she wanted... given a choice of what if left, I'd go for RE out of those options...

Mine took RE and has thrived ..., learned a lot of language/debating skills and has really enjoyed the ethics/philosophy components...

putthehamsterbackinitscage · 04/05/2017 16:56

Also, it would be quite different from art and textiles - so might break up the timetable really well

Bach2Bach · 04/05/2017 16:57

Italian does sound lovely but it's not easy and if your DD is not that interested in languages she might lose heart when faced with the (scary) grammar and the (even scarier) irregular verbs.
Not that German is a bed of roses but it shares quite a few words with English and I find it easier to pronounce.

LIZS · 04/05/2017 16:59

Dd says the app she has used is duolingo.

BertrandRussell · 04/05/2017 17:08

At my dd's school there was a French teacher who taught Italian if there was demand- and timetable space. She didn't just do nothing if there were no takers for Italian because that just meant more in the French class.

zeeboo · 04/05/2017 17:11

German is awesome!!

sashh · 04/05/2017 17:14

t's possible that the Italian teacher won't be going spare but will be teaching drama or geography or any other subject instead

Or more likely already teaching two language classes, with 2 languages or two groups of French or Spanish.

If there is one teacher who teaches, say French and Italian it may be a case of teaching two groups French rather than one French and one Italian, and if 40 kids want to do French and only 5 Italian then they are going to disappoint the 5.

It is unusual for so many languages to be on offer.

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