School being difficult about language choices for my daughter

[trefusis22]

Does anyone have experience or advice regarding how to get a school to allow your child to take the language choices we would like them to make? Ds is Italian and my daughter already studying this out of school doing gcse early. School asked and we responded about any pre gcse language choices although they don't guarantee them. We wrote in in good time and requested Spanish as good chance daughter is going to do languages going forwards and it's a good match to the Italian. School have responded saying we have no choice and she is down to do German. It's totally random and we do not get to choose!

This doesn't make sense to us and school will not meet us and say their decision is binding.

What rights do we have - is there a duty of care for the school to take our daughters future language ambitions into account?

Any experience on this / helpful info gratefully received. Thank u

Tbh, I don't know much about your rights in this situation, though I don't imagine that you have many.

However, if your dd really wants to do languages going forward, then it might be good to do German in order to expand her range. I'd have thought it would be pretty easy for her to self teach Spanish, given her existing knowledge of Italian?

This really depends on how old she is & how the rest of the timetable works. Chances are it has been decided by the class she is in which will be dictated by her English and maths sets. It's worth requesting to talk to the head of MEL and someone from the teaching and learning group but to be honest unless you have an understanding of curriculum models its unlikely to change. Unfortuantely its not as simple as 'wanting' one language over another.

It's probably to do with timetabling and staff availability. At my son's school, learning Spanish rather than German would have meant moving him to a different class, which wouldn't have been possible unless another child was willing to do a direct swap.

In terms of your rights, you have the right to remove her from that school if you feel strongly enough about it to do that.

I'd say this is a timetabling issue more than some effort to restrict your daughter's choices. Your time of applying is irrelevant.

Italian and German would demonstrate a wider range of ability, so would be a good choice for someone wishing to study languages at university.

You requested it, that's not the same as being able to order on demand.

I agree with the others that it's a timetabling issue most likely. It would be ridiculously unreasonable to expect them to swap around the whole timetable just for your child.

If your daughter is so interested in Spanish, you can manage your own duty of care to her language ambitions (if there is such a thing), and teach her outside school. Duolingo, evening classes, books - loads of options. Take a bit of initiative here.

I would still make an appointment to see the Head of Languages. It makes sense to do Spanish if you have an Italian base. I assume there is a timetable clash somewhere - you need to find out where and whether your daughter would be prepared to either change form group or change another option. I do know German uptake is low and have come across departments rectifying this by dividing year groups 50-50 in key stage 3. I hadn't heard of that at key stage 4 given it went to being optional rather than mandatory to take a language to 16. Has it changed again or is your options form making you choose from set options? I never had to timetabling but can imagine it is a huge ball ache.

I think the school owes you an explanation! Maybe it's timetabling, maybe it's about maths/English sets and maybe they know if everyone has a free choice of language then not many would choose German, but whatever their thinking is they should agree to meet with you and tell you what it is. You are a consumer of their product, if you like, and through your taxes (or fees if the school is private), then you have a right to know what is going on and why your DD, who is serious about studying languages, may have a spanner thrown in her plans for GCSE. All schools have timetabling clashes between certain subjects, which can rule out certain combinations of subjects, but you do have a right to know what is going on.

We already realised they wouldn't be able to help with the Italian and spoke to head of languages last year (also dd's form tutor) and dd is having lessons in this outside school and taking gcse early through a tutor. Head of languages is already aware of this and also dd's desire to study languages further. She would like to do Spanish because it is a more widely spoken language and whilst German might demonstrate wider skills - it's not as useful for her ambitions.
We felt by letting the school know early and by engaging In Dialogue early they would be able to accommodate without putting anyone out. We haven't been u reasonable or demanding in any of our conversations at all. I'm just mystified at the lack of dialogue or explanation we are getting - want to understand if others have experienced this

Would you move her schools over this? If you knew another school would allow her to take Spanish?

We could but we thought we could get to an agreement without having to as we thought we had given lots of advance information and that it wasn't a deal breaker - clearly there is more going on ... than we understand! I would have hoped to figure it out with the school before we get to that kind of a decision

I would have thought it means that they think your child is able, as children who find languages hard get in better with Spanish than other subjects apparently, so I bet lots of the kids who have got Spanish are less able.

They think your child is good enough to study German.

Spanish is widely spoken but within Europe, so is German. With her Italian knowledge she will find it very easy to pick up Spanish at any time. So if I were her, I would take the opportunity to have tuition in this very different language. She could easily take a Spanish GCSE alongside her A levels and or start it ab initio at university.

I think German is a better choice to br honest. Spanish and Italian are so closely related whilst German is completely different. It will show that she has ability as a linguist.

Unless their is room for timetable change for your dd I think you will get what you're given. It's a state school after all. Can she opt out of German entirely rather than do it?

The only question for me is whether or not the school currently offers spanish or not. If not it is asking a lot for the school to put on a new course when funding is becoming a significant issue in schools.
If the school do offer spanish at GCSE, then they owe you and your daughter an explanation as to why they are being so blunt in saying you will study german. It may well be that there is a clash on the timetable which they cannot get around but there is no reason why they cannot explain that to you and your daughter. If the school are making a decision that daughter must learn german as that is best for her in the long term, I would suggest that they are taking their parental duties rather too far!
Though having said that I do agree with others that picking up spanish, having an italian background, does seem likely to be relatively easy in comparison with german.

They have 3 Spanish classes that they timetable so it's not like they don't do it or that we would be asking them to put som ething on specially for dd.
They didn't do Italian - hence why we have organised this for outside school (and to be clear we never asked them to provide this - so it's not like we have already been asking for something they can't provide)

One local school does German or French (half do each) to GCSE compulsory. They do it so you are either in a French class or a German. You can request, but that is no guarantee.
German was much less popular so they persuaded local schools to do German at primary level.
And so now every year there's parent saying "but they've done 7 years of German, I don't want them to start a new language."

We had a similar situation. My DS speaks Spanish at home (DH is Spanish) and I teach Spanish and French. Really wanted him to do French and German in Y7 (with the idea of picking up Spanish GCSE later) but he was put down to do Spanish and German. We spoke to the head of department who gave us a choice - he could move tutor group and do French and Spanish (but then be without his friends moving up from primary) or to do French and Spanish. Not ideal as he’s missed out on chance to learn German and he’s bored in his Spanish lessons but at least he gets the opportunity to do French which I thought was important as similar to Spanish.

It helped that the school explained the problem and gave us choices - none perfect but at least we understood the problem.

As an ex-head of languages, I imagine the problem is to do with timetabling and they are worried that if they make an exception for one student, they will be inundated with requests from others which would be impossible to cope with. I think the best way forward would be to ask for an explanation of the problem - maybe something else could give. Otherwise, find another way to do Spanish - or if it’s that important, look at changing school...We did consider that option but ultimately decided that other factors were more important than the language. After all, it’s the language learning process that’s important. A good linguist could always pick up a language from scratch later - I did Spanish GCSE in the sixth form and now speak it much better than French and there are many ab initio degrees in languages.

Hope you get a happy resolution!

Sorry - he could move tutor group and do French and German...

Also, the point about more able students doing German is possibly more relevant- Spanish is often (wrongly in my opinion!) considered an easier language to learn - there may be some covert setting going on...in which case she might be better off with the German.

They won’t be doing it to spite you or annoy you. It will be for timetabling. And it won’t be up to you and your son to decide on changing tutor groups to accommodate the language choice or that would set a precedent for others wanting to swap.

Agreed it sounds like timetabling/resources but such a sad reflection of the state of language teaching in schools that there is this issue. There should be enough resources to offer some degree of choice.

What's wrong with allowing a child to swap classes if by doing so they still do all their mandatory courses but also get the optional courses of their choice? If all the classes are full then fair enough change isn't possible but otherwise it seems a bit obstructionist to me. I'm not in the UK anymore but my children put down the courses they want and then if they aren't assigned them go see the counselor who plays around with courses on his/her computer and sees what is possible. Generally they are pretty keen to fit with each child's wishes as children are much more motivated if they are in courses they have an interest in, and the school wants the best results possible. Forcing a child to do a course they don't want to do seems awfully counterproductive.

Ours were put into the French side of the school or the Spanish in Year7. Many Spanish speaking parents complained. Head refused to change/move/do anything!

It will be down to timetable clashes. Surely this has been explained to you by the school that options are never guaranteed and they will do what they can to accommodate choices.

I'm guessing that not enough students wanted to do Spanish so German is the best option as a replacement subject. DDs school needs a minimum of 22 students to run a class as a first choice gcse option. You may find your German teacher is also the Spanish teacher. More students picked German so that gets the slot in the timetable.

DD had to choose between triple science and Art. She wants to be an architect so needs physics and Art but she wanted to do triple sciences. She cant do triple sciences and Art as they clash in the timetable. She has had to do double science to free up the slot where Art is timetabled. DS wanted to do history and geography, they were timetabled for the same slot so he had to choose 1. He picked History. Honestly the school has nothing against you, they just provide the most popular choices as a priority to ensure most students get at least 1 of their choices. Very few students will actually get every subject they picked.

The school doesnt really owe you an explanation. My many years experience with schools tells me they absolutely would have written somewhere that they will try to provide the choices you pick for options but theyre not guaranteed. Have a look through the website, it will be there somewhere because every year without fail someone will complain they didnt get the options their child wanted. Schools tend to have this information already published so they can refer you to it if you complain.

DS's school was like this too. He has a friend whose dad was Spanish. In his year group you got the French or Spanish side of the year. You guessed it, he got French. I don't know if his mother made a complaint but if she did, it didn't get anywhere. It's madness, especially as they don't get to pick up any other languages any more, so the language they are allocated in Y7 is the one they have to do for GCSE.