Son been randomised to German in Y7 despite me requesting french

[whataboutbob]

As background, I am a French speaker , my gran was french and I grew up in a French speaking country. The language is important to me. I tried teaching my kids but was unsuccessful, for various reasons including DS1 ‘s resistance and various heavy family responsibilities elsewhere. DH does not speak french. Anyway , DS2 has been positive toward the language and so in advance of him staring in September I have been communicating with secondary school since March and requesting that he be assigned to French as MFL. So today they tell me he’s been assigned to German ( as was DS1). I am very disappointed .
After being upset about it, I’m trying to think of ways to ensure he gains some linguistic skills. I’m thinking of booking him on an immersive course in French next summer, while we holiday in France . I know I can speak french with him but it usually goes wrong, he reverts to English very quickly and it just feels artificial if I insist. Any ideas?

Have you spoken to the school since allocation? It may be a genuine error.

Speak to the school, OP. A parent so eager for their child to take a language will result in better parental support at home. Win, win.

I have been exchanging emails with school which culminated with them telling me today it’s going to be German. To wash their hands of any responsibility for this they referred me to an email they sent on the 12th of July ( to my husband) informing us he’d be in the German group unless they heard from us. Unfortunately he did not pass it on to me. The email had no subject and he didn’t even read it.
They said they could put him in the French group but he’d have to go into another tutor group where he knows none of the other kids, I just don’t have the heart to make him choose between french or being with friends 😕.

and he didn't even read it . Maybe he should have. It must have been very clear who it was from.

Ah OP your title is somewhat misleading I think!
I work in education and was going to suggest a chat with the head of year initially however after seeing that you were told DS would be doing German unless you objected and you didn’t object then I think any request to change to French now would be entirely unreasonable.

Is DS keen to learn French? It sounds as though he may be saying he is to please you (which is lovely) but his heart isn’t really in it which is why he isn’t really making any progress.

He may be more interested when he gets a little older and wants to learn more about other cultures etc.

It is unfortunate your dh didn’t read the email but not the school’s fault. They will have had tens of conflicting things to consider when allocating children to groups and someone involved in sorting this did try to get a steer from you as to how imperative it was that he did French. Even now they have said they can resolve it but that it has knock on implications - which is often inevitable in these situations. I think all you can do is decide what is more important to you (and it seems you have already done so!)

Stick with the status-quo. If he turns out to have a spark for languages then learning German will eventually trigger his interest in French and he will still have you and other relatives to give him opportunities - result, he ends up with 3 languages. If he doesn't have a spark for languages then it doesn't much matter which he fails to get anywhere with.

Thanks everyone. Obviously DH should have read the email, but it was sent with no subject and I wasn’t copied in despite initiating and carrying on all of the email conversations about this since March. I can’t help thinking it’s a very convenient fig leaf for them to hide behind. Obviously they’ve allocated and don’t want to mix things around. DS was in tears at the thought of choosing between french or being with friends. So we’ll just have to accept it’s German and as imchlibob says maybe there will be opportunities for french later, we’ll just have to work at it as a family. It’s taught to be very careful and procedural in communications with the school from now on.

Would you really decline to read an email from your child's school because it had no subject header?! It's squarely on your DH, not the school.

It's your husband's fault for not reading the email, it doesn't come down to the school to make him do it. You'd think that if your family were interested in education he'd have bothered his arse to open it. Whoever sent the email probably looked at the contact info for parents and chose one of you at random.

I personally think you should get Ds to do French outside of school. If it is so important you will find time to do it. If not, he would probably use what French he learns in school very little anyway.

I’m actually quite upset about this, to reiterate I was communicating with them since March. I also discussed this at the taster day 2 weeks ago and was told they would do what they could to ensure he did french. Then this one email, not to me, with no subject. Yes DH should have read it, but if the school had been genuine in discussing this with me they should have emailed me and put in the subject.
Anyway the dye is cast. It leaves a bad taste. I’m not usually remotely pushy, I support teachers, and come down hard on my kids if they misbehave. This however has been a wake up call. DS is able in most areas and my job now is to ensure now they don’t squander his potential.

Oh give over about the subject. If your DH had opened the email he'd have seen what the school was trying to communicate to him.
It didn't have to come with glittery ticker tape rolling down the screen to grab his attention.

Squander his potential .

Thanks lama really supportive.

I think it might introduce a very unbalanced family dynamic I’d your ds2 did French when ds1 hadn’t. Did you push it for ds1? Probably a better plan would be to put them both in a course together?

Cant you just teach him french at home?

DS was in tears at the thought of choosing between french or being with friends.

I think you may need to encourage ds to develop some resilience, and be open to the idea of making new friends.

1. He would be in French class to learn French, not to interact with his friends.
2. There will probably be other times, as he goes through school, when he will find himself in classes without any of his friends, due to subject choices/timetable arrangements.
3. It may well be that his primary school friendship group breaks up anyway when they reach secondary, so he should be encouraged not to depend on those friends too much.

However you try and dress it OP the school is not at fault on this! The school will have hundreds of pupils, and the staff will be overstretched, you need more realistic expectations of the relationship between school and parents- they will not have the staff or the time to double check that one particular pupils arrangements are ok, a parent was sent an email with the relevant information and the onus is on the parent to read it and respond if needed.

The sour taste is of your own making on this.

A bit harsh MissLingoss. It's not just changing french class, it's changing tutor group. And when you are going into year 7, having some familiar faces in your tutor group feels massively important, even though we all know they will probably have entirely new friends by half term.

But the obvious positive spin is that he gets to learn a new language while still being exposed to french at home. It will probably all come out in the wash and there's plenty of time for him to learn both if he has an aptitude for languages.

There are french exchange schemes which can be organised independently. I also know of at least one musical theatre residential course in France, for secondary aged students from anywhere in Europe. I'm guessing there are similar things for sports etc, depending what floats his boat.

I took German at school and in Yr 8 was also given the chance to take up French as a 2nd MFL. Is that an option at the school for your DS if he is interested in pursuing.

I never thought I'd use German and would have preferred French from the outset but now I am using it daily in my role as I've started working with our German team quite intensively so am glad I had the introduction to it at school.

To be fair to OP, if she told them in March that she had a preference for French why would the school say in July that it's German unless they hear differently? She's already told them differently.

I get there's nothing to be done now OP but I would be annoyed too.

Thanks to all who posted supportive and resourceful messages. For some context, 4 years ago when DS1 was going into secondary I was very heavily involved with the care of my dad who had Alzheimer’s. So I let things slide. I actually thought we’d be given a choice but they just put him in German stream. My being upset may also have something to do with the fact that most of my French speaking family are dead- mother, grandmother, grandfather, even my dad spoke it ( badly). I feel (irrationally ) that I’m betraying them by not succeeding in getting at least one of my kids to speak the language.
I realise it’s down to me to get creative and find other ways of promoting the language eg tutors, exchanges, residential courses.
By the way I’m not downgrading German as a language. It could also be an asset in some industries eg engineering. It just doesn’t have the family links for me.

My dd is learning Italian via Skype with a language teacher/professional translator I met on here.
It works well - very easy to fit into an evening (and family life with several children and many extracurriculars can be hard to juggle) and a change of pace from school learning.
Maybe something like this might work?

Thanks countess that would be worth considering.