School changed policy and didn’t inform parents intake yr7 - languages

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Dd is dual French / British. She understands everything in French, has been reluctant to speak but improving. She has just gone into year 7 in a very large secondary offering 3 language options.

All parents were told all children would do french first then offered a second language at a later stage. The policy changed sometime after the close of applications for secondary last year but no one informed the parents of yr7 intake. As a result I didn’t discuss dd as a separate case with the school, just filled in the relevant information on the admissions form.

Dd was given french. All good or so I thought. Except I subsequently found out from parents some children were doing just Spanish, others Spanish and German, French and Spanish etc. I therefore queried this with the school and they told me language teaching had been cut and now children in the top set of English have 2 languages, all the rest one. This won’t change but because dd is an exceptional case the school is will offer dd 3 possibilities. Stick with french, change to just German or both Spanish and German. If she does either of the latter 2 I will have to teach her or get a tutor - either is possible.

For legal reasons (school is full) dd cannot change to another “stream” and will have to stay in this stream for yrs 7/8/9. So it’s a big decision. There are 3 streams and it is just bad luck she’s been put in the stream where french can’t be combined - I assume the other 2 can but am seeking clarification and left a message for the curriculum head.

I don’t want to go in all guns blazing but I’m mightily pissed off that the school didn’t just bang off an email to the feeder schools at the time of the policy change to ensure the children, who fall outside the norm would be catered for.

My feeling is that if she does both Spanish and German that will be heavy going and the school obviously agree. However she can drop Spanish at any time if it’s too heavy going and centre on German. The benefit of doing both however would be she can potentially change streams to french plus either / or if a child leaves and a space comes available. But idk at this stage if this could happen and I know dd wouldn’t want to change forms if that was the only well to make it work. She was very reluctant to go to this school (she didn’t get into her preferred school) and I don’t want to rock the boat with her.

Any advice for the way forward?

[Comefromaway]

To clarify (I can't remember which uni criteria I saw it on but it was on a website under admissions) it wasn ot for students wanting to study a mfl at degree level. It was for universities that wanted evidence that a student is capable of study at A level standard 3 subjects taken in one sitting (so proof of their academic prowess so to speak).

This was a year or two ago so things may have changed.

[clary]

Berlinbabylon sadly many schools can now only offer one language, due to staffing issues and lack of uptake.

Just as an example, dd did A level French, there were two students (!) in her class and that was thevonlyt a level languages group,even though the school offers three languages at GCSE. I was so lucky to be able to take five languages for O level.

[clary]

I mean that a lot of schools can only allow each child to study one language, timetabling is often the issue. My DCs' school offers three languages, but only one per child/class, and literally nobody picks up a second at GCSE, though in theory you can.

[daisypond]

I’m quite surprised at that. After all, there are plenty of nonacademic A-levels, or with only a small amount of academic work that count for university admission. Photography, for example. Or Art.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

I’ve read all the comments. Thanks for all the information. I’ve taken note. Things have really changed since I was at university. Stuff like having passing A levels all at the same time and A’s going to mother tongue students (how sad for everyone else).

The deputy head or head of languages is hopefully going to pull dd to one side today and ask her how she feels. She doesn’t do her options until yr10 so any decision now is for 3 years. That would leave 2 years to integrate in GCSE French but by that stage she’d probably be best to take it earlier through the school.

I’d like dd to do Spanish and German. But need to see what dd says. Idk how likely it would be to take both to gcse. I know dd is very very lucky to be in this position. I’m now so glad she didn’t get into the other school which only offered French.

I was written off by my secondary teacher as being not good at languages and the teacher wasn’t sure that I’d get an O level in it. In the event I got a B then the degree and a good level of German in my 30’s. She was wrong. Dh is very intelligent, more so than me and he doesn’t have the same aptitude for learning languages. I believe dd is more like me in this respect and capable of learning the two. It’s just a feeling having been a TEFL teacher for a few years. But otoh she’d rather be off running around than have her nose in a book.

Okki
Yes the school will allow dd to take it early. Maybe your dd could do a Spanish evening class with you? The condition of dd putting first choice for the school with only French was that she would do Spanish with Dh and me as a family. That school did not offer French gcse early so it would have been very boring for her.

Berlin
That is how the parents at dds school, whose children have been given one language. One mum is thinking about an extra language outside of school.

[BubblesBuddy]

There is a shortage of MFL students so entry qualifications are getting lower but as DD did MFL at University, with two A levels at A grade in MFL, it is far better to make sure you study MFL with an essay subject at A level to go with the languages. Several of her friends had 3 x MFL at A level (native speaker plus two other languages) or a non essay academic subject and struggled with the essay requirements of the degree in the first year. The very best universities would not like Photography or Art or any non academic A level because they are poor prep for an academic degree. The best prep is 2 x MFL A levels plus something like History, English or Politics. All taken at the same time!

[daisypond]

My DD is at a very top Russell Group university doing an academic subject and has Photography as one of her A levels, and the others were media studies and sociology. No problems getting a place anywhere. Got an A and two Bs at A level. A was in photography.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Wow great grades! Thanks for the input both. That’s for a long time in the future with dd. She’s already asked me if she has to go bless her.

[daisypond]

I meant to add, a friend of mine who moved back to the UK in the middle of GCSE years with her children found out that her child, despite being fluent in another European language, couldn’t take it for GCSE because the school didn’t teach it. And it was deemed too late to learn another language, so they didn’t take any language for GCSE. Didn’t hinder them later on either.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Ok thx daisy. I see how important it is to have the school on board.

[berlinbabylon]

Berlinbabylon sadly many schools can now only offer one language, due to staffing issues and lack of uptake

They actually offer 3 languages, but the kids can only take one.

It was mainly because the KS4 timetable is taken up with so much science, Maths and English. A real shame. And there is this thing that GCSE MFL are hard. They're really not if you have a talent for languages.

The MFL teacher said it didn't really matter which language they did. Well it kind of does. Knowing Spanish is great but not so useful if you want to live and work in Germany (mind you, Brexit may have put paid to any traitorous ideas like that).

DS is doing Spanish plus history and politics so should be very well prepared for a MFL degree if he wants to do one .

[clary]

Berlinbabylon yes sorr, that was what I meant. DCs' school offers French, German and Spanish, each year is split into three and you only do one. Dd did French for GCSE and A level and ds did Spanish, no realistic option to do a second one :(

The school I taught at has started teaching one out of French and German to alternate years.

You have to do English and maths and science you see, pretty ,yah regardless of what else you do. English GCSE is so hard now, there's no timetable room for four or five lessons of MFL in a week.

[ChicCroissant]

Just to echo what other posters have said about a school teaching three languages but the students only getting to do one

DD studied French at primary and had an apititude for it - her first choice school (which we didn't get unfortunately and failed at appeal) taught a term each of French/Spanish/German, but the school we got decided at a very late stage that the children would only learn one language each - and then, a few weeks later and after the appeals had been heard - that French wouldn't be taught at all for that cohort and they would pick which class did either Spanish or German.

I was furious. They don't have to take a language at GCSE (they say now, who knows with their propensity to change their mind) and I did point out that they are limiting the children's GCSE choices right from the start. Hardly surprising then, if the pupils have no choice of language, that the numbers taking them further are declining It is a real shame.

[ittakes2]

Can I just give you something to think about please. You said very clearly your daighter wants to do Spanish - and yet you have also talked about her taking the harder path of doing both Spanish and German and then dropping Spanish if she finds it too much. You are also saying you need to use bribery and corruption to get her to speak French.
It sounds very much like you have a battle on your hands and you are planning on taking on an even bigger battle. "Open Day' who is a language tutor said passion is the most important thing for chosing a language - your daughter wants to do Spanish - why not let her do just Spanish? Its an easier language to learn and she wants to learn it, so pressumably she will then do better at it in her GCSES.
I have a daughter who has just finished year 7 - this age is very tricky age - I think you might be setting yourself up for a fail if you go down the route of trying to get her to do extra with both Spanish and German.
Native speakers studying their mother language is very common in UK high schools - all the children I know who are in this position still attend the same classes as the beginners but the teachers set them their own work and they sit their GCSE for that language earlier.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Yes. Budget cuts everywhere. I don’t think parents are going to appeal at dds school. They have shrunk the number of classes available for dds year from 6 to 5.

@ittakes
Thank you for letting me know yr7 can be a difficult year. Dd can’t do Spanish without German. I would agree with you if she could. Anyway the head of languages spoke to dd yesterday and she was given the choice of what to do (just French, just German or German and spanish) and to discuss it with us over the weekend. Dd has decided she will do just German, which of course I totally support and agree the two additional languages would be very heavy. It isn’t the perfect solution as yes, I’d very much like her to study French. But here we are. She will be fine. We will probably get her a tutor for French at a later date to avoid arguments and commitment wise this will then be the same as the children studying 2 languages.

I did ask the curriculum head how she’d deal with this in the future as I didn’t want children to go through this again. She said they’d contact the feeder schools and make enquiries that way to make this discreet.

[DaydreamInBlue]

OP, reading between the lines it sounds like your DD has good French listening skills, that her spoken isn’t so good, what are her reading and writing levels like?

If they are all strong, you could ask if school would put your DD in for the GCSE exam, maybe even early, but do other languages in the class room.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

Daydream
This is what we will do. She doesn’t read and write much. We have worked through an exercise book together. The curriculum is available online and we will either put her into gcse through school early or if she isn’t ready she can study it in class yr 10 and 11.

[GrasswillbeGreener]

My niece started French at high school and dropped it after 2 years - they had enough native speakers / children with a parent who spoke enough French to help at home, that her parents got the overwhelming impression that the teacher was actively disinterested in teaching children whose parents didn't know any French. (My sister did German and Latin at school, I can't remember how far she went with German though it won't have been to the equivalent of A level standard for sure)

[YobaOljazUwaque]

I think its only at GCSE where there's a serious "that doesn't count" reaction to a native-speaker child getting the qualification. Getting a GCSE in your native non-English language is as easy as sneezing as the GCSE syllabus just requires demonstrating a very basic competency in the language. An A-level in a language which is a native fluency might be slightly discounted but not to the same amount - a French speaker getting an A-Level in French is probably about equivalent to an English speaker getting a GCSE or AS-Level in English - I don't know the exact requirements of the syllabus but there's more to it than being able to make yourself understood, you need to be able to write essays in the language and understand quite complex texts. At degree level I don't think there would be any kind of "that doesn't count" - a degree in French held by a French speaker would be no more unreasonable than a degree in English held by an English speaker, because they are studying in so much more depth.

[TheBrockmans]

What sort of trajectory do you think she will want to take - I know that is hard to know at this stage, but if you have a sense. For example one of mine from a fairly young age has hated languages- she is good at them and language teachers were suggesting doing two, but far better and enjoys other subjects much more. She is doing one language GCSE and if for example she was your dd that would be in French because for her she wants to concentrate on the other subjects and it is just there to make up the numbers and tick the ebbac boxes. If she was your dd I would leave her in the French stream - one easy GCSE already ticked off.

Another child loves languages, learning one at primary school and another couple on Duolingo, picks them up really easily, amazing memory for vocab and could easily see him doing three to GCSE - although a long way off and many other decisions to make first.

[hopelesschildren]

XXX (top uni in London) values the skills that language acquisition brings and many of our applicants describe themselves as bi, tri or multi-lingual. We do however differentiate between language learning qualifications and those designed for competent language users. Where we have reason to believe a student has significant prior exposure to a language, we may exclude a language learning qualification from any offer we make.

Significant prior exposure to a language may include:

you, your immediate family or your community regularly speak the language during day-to-day life.
you live or have lived in a country where that language is commonly spoken.
you are or have been educated in that language.
The most common qualifications this applies to are language A levels (except those designed for first language users eg, Welsh first language), International Baccalaureate Language B courses and Advanced Placement Language and Culture Courses. We are able to be more flexible in our requirements when considering courses taken only to AS or Standard Level, although we may still exclude these.

In order to help us with this decision, we take into account all information provided on the UCAS application such as nationality, schools attended (pre and post-16), completed language qualifications, normal place of residence and information from your referee. Where it is unclear to us whether the language qualification being taken is providing a significant academic challenge, we may require further information from you or your referee before we make our final decision.

[BubblesBuddy]

daisypond: if your DD isn’t doing MFL atva top university then you simply won’t understand that Photography would be poor prep for an MFL degree because of the in depth analysis of culture and literature required. By the way, my other DD has an A* in Photography at A level so I really do know the difference between what A levels are the best prep for a MFL degree and which are not. However if the OPs DC doesn’t want degree level then it won’t matter. However making life easier is always better than taking advice from someone on here whose DD has not done MFL at degree level at s top university.

[daisypond]

Mine isn’t doing MFL at university but her friend, who also did photography at A level , is doing MFL at a high grade university. The sad fact is, languages are in decline nowadays, and universities are not so fussy about the grades or subjects for MFL. I know someone who went to Bristol to study French with only a C in French.