MFL Exchange Trips - less common these days?

[shivermewotsits]

My DS is in Year 8 at a state school and recently had an MFL trip abroad for a few days. I just met with a friend who has DD in Year 8 at an independent school, and she said DD had been on an exchange trip - she's spent a few days with a French family and then a (different) French child had spent a few days at their house a few months later. It made me wonder whether state schools still do exchanges or whether safeguarding is too much of an issue.

My friend said there were no specific safeguarding checks - she just had to sign something to say that the visiting child would not be left alone with any male family members, which seems a bit bizarre in this day and age (apart from the inherent assumption that it is only men who are a danger to children, it would also exclude any single parent families where there was no mum around).

Our school still does exchanges and as you say we have not been subject to dbs checks and neither have the German (in our case) family.

My DS is 15 and 6 foot tall so I am not overly worried!

Yeah, I guess it gets less of an issue as they get older - I don't know if our school does it further up the school. My friend said a lot of the kids in her DDs group were really in at the deep end because they'd only been doing French for a year and weren't very confident, though I guess they would have been more confident by the end (if not completely freaked out by it! ). She said the French kid staying with them was in at the deep end too and she had to mime everything.

Our school has said that it is getting increasingly difficult. German exchange is still working but the French exchange has collapsed....kids going to young doesn't work and when older, kids coming back pregnant didn't go down well!

Mine went to an independent school and no exchanges there either. Just the normal language trips - including one to Italy where they spent a few days in a cookery school. I think exchanges kept the cost down!

when older, kids coming back pregnant didn't go down well

Oh dear!

I went on three exchange trips when I was 16, 17 and 18. OK I might have done a bit of snogging. And I might not have been the only one. But i don't think anyone came back pregnant!

But at ds school they only do trips with hotel stays. It's a shame, I made some really good friends on exchange trips and only really lost touch in the last few years. Two of my exchange partners came to my wedding.

My dd did an exchange at about age 14 to Germany and then a few months later her exchange partner came and stayed with us. I am not aware of any checks that were made. She also did another exchange at age 17 for "work experience", some pupils did work experience locally but they also got the opportunity of going back to Germany. Very useful if you were considering a career with languages. Then again the partner came back here a few weeks later for their work experience. The school organised it all. I think both exchanges happened at the same time and both age groups travelled together each year.

My DD, now 19, spent a week in Spain at the end of Year 9, then flew back with her exchange who spent a week with us (in school for the week days). No DBS checks required.
She also spent two weeks at an American school during the October half term of Year 10, and her exchange came to us the following June. Again, no DBS checks needed.

I think they are less common now than they used to be, but they do happen.
No DBS checks though - my dd stayed with the exchange partner's family and he with us.
From a language learning pov it was disappointing though as all his family spoke really good English, so I don't think dd ever got 'emerged' in German at any point!

No there are never dbs checks which are done because dbs checks are completed by a school or an agency and not within households.

Exchanges are quite hard to run now - partly because some parents are extremely worried about safety from terrorists or from sexual predators and/or family members who they feel should go through police checks. One parent told her daughter "but why would you want to leave me for a week, don't you love me?"

Those who do go have a fabulous time, and their language skills improve immeasurably.

Yes - immersion is the best way by far.

Unfortunately often the parents of the exchange partner are really keen to try out their English.

We used to do a german exchange at my school which then stopped. Too many German girls wanted to do it (it was with a girls' Gymasium) versus too few over here. I think we were the last year to fully do it, as the year after was marred by the ash cloud.