Title edited by MNHQ at request of OP - Updated: School being annoying about languages - what to do?

[EverythingSortsEventually]

Warning: Apologies, this turned into a bit of a rant and got a bit long.

I’m getting very annoyed at DC school about their approach to languages. DC just gone into Y9 and started their school this year.

We lived in Germany for 10 years. DC was aged 3-13. Let’s just say they have a pretty decent grasp of German, despite it technically being a 2nd language, having lived around the language for 10 years and gone to the German equivalent of English state school. I’d go as far as saying that I actually think my childs German is better than their English. Although it’s borderline.

So their England secondary school teaches French and German. They were put into the French and German lessons. Fine. I have no problem with this. DC actually went to the English lessons in their German school. Despite speaking English at home it helped their English especially in terms of grammar which native speakers usually miss out on. Plus, allowed DC to use English in a context which wasn’t just with the family. Let’s just say, by the age of 13, most of the kids in the school had a grasp of English which would mean they could hold basic everyday conversations abut simple things and survive in English if they had to as they have a good foundation. I would say to about A2/Low B1 on the language scale. The school also were good at teaching foreign languages and allowed DC to use/develop more complex English in the lessons. Pushing DC up to the top class even allowing DC to have some English classes with a higher year group when the lessons aligned. So I haven’t a problem with DC being in German lessons as they will get the grammar parts they don’t get as a ‘native’ speaker and it keeps the German ticking over.

However, school have put DC in the bottom set for both French and German. Right, ok. I can understand the reasoning in that they have no knowledge of language abilities and sets can change. But, DC is fluent in German. Alright, I can cope with bottom set French, that’s something that can sort itself out with setting later on, but German! Really?

I’ve spoken countless times to the school about this and so has DC. I explained how it worked for English in Germany and whether there was a possibility of doing the same here.

They have 2 German lessons a fortnight. I understand there are timetabling issues regarding going into a Y10/Y11 class or even a sixth form class (although I know fine well, from what DC has said, there is at least one Y10 class scheduled for the same time as their German class and one sixth form class at the same time as their other German class so I don’t understand why DC can’t just go to those classes instead).

I was then given some rubbish about following the ‘correct curriculum progression’. I honestly don’t care about whether they follow the ‘correct curriculum progression’ for German. They have used the language spontaneously and flexibly for 10 years of their life. They use German every day anyways in a non ‘correct curriculum progression’ way when speaking/texting/WhatsApping their German friends. DC still hears German at home because I do speak to my German friends in German and so does DH. Its not like they are going to forget it overnight or can’t use the correct German for the correct situation.
It won’t be that hard for them to go into the GCSE German class for a term before the GCSE exams and learn the format of the papers.

So I have asked whether DC can, at the very least, be moved to the Y9 top set. The answer was no, as they have no previous record of language skills they had to put DC on bottom set.

Fine. I organised a meeting with the German teacher and the head of German. We had a conversation about my DC in German! My DC spoke in fluent German to the German teacher and the head of German throughout explaining why they wanted to go into the higher sets! My DC had been doing some googling and actually took an ALevel German paper with them and showed the teachers they could understand it and answer the questions. How much more evidence do they need of language ability!? But no, they have to be set properly like the rest of the school. I mean come on! This is really doing my head in. The Y9 bottom set are doing no more than still trying to remember how to say who they are, where they live and the contents of their pencil cases - definitely not even on the language scales never mind A1. DC is making the most of this class and trying to help others and has said that some of their friends have liked them being in the class and DC can see how much they have helped them but it really isn’t helping DC and they are getting bored. The top set are a lot further along and are at least learning about grammar and trying to have basic daily conversations so probably around the A1/low A2 level. This is what DC wants to be doing. Having conversations at the very least and doesn’t mind if it’s a bit dodgy or they have to help others.

I’m debating asking the school whether it’s even worth DC doing German and whether there’s something else they can be doing. (Although I don’t really want to, I think keeping up with German, however rubbish it is/whatever solution we find is no bad thing).

I just don’t get it! Why can’t the school not just use common sense? How can I make them listen?

I don't understand the comments. This would seriously annoy me too. Your child will be completely demotivated. I find languages teaching in this country pretty frustrating generally - my DC school offers only one - so sympathise but have no solutions.

If your sons school have heard him speak fluently and not moved him themselves then I’d say this is probably not worth fighting.

i would follow the previous posters suggestion to book him in for his German gcse at the end of year 9 privately. Buy him a gcse German revision guide and pay for a few tutoring sessions.

At the end of year 9 he should be able to drop it at school and you can progress to a level privately if you want to.

Let him take a German reading book into gcse German leçons if he’s very bored

This is crazy OP!

As a language teacher (Spanish) I find this appalling. No bilingual child should be placed in the bottom set.

If your DC was at my school they would have been properly assessed and placed in the appropriate set from the start. If they started in the wrong set, this would have been picked up and they would have moved, after assessment, into the correct set ASAP.

I’ve found most bilingual children whose parents want them to go to the language lessons end up in set 1 or 2. Definitely not set 5. They have good speaking, listening, reading and writing abilities but they lack in the grammar/language structure so set 2 is usually a very good compromise. Where necessary extension work and differentiated work is provided. They are NOT extra teaching assistants as a previous poster commented. (Not saying some schools don’t do that). These children need around a year in the class, whether it is Y7/8/9, (Y10 and 11 are dealt with slightly differently in twilight classes and go straight to the GCSE), to get the grammar knowledge before they can go into the accelerated GCSE class where they take the GCSE early and then placed into A-Level the year after. With some very cleaver planning, the accelerated GCSE can be run in a timetabled slot, otherwise, it’s run as a twilight session and the children who are years 8/9 are provided work from the twilight sessions to complete in the normal slot for the ‘everyone else’ Spanish lesson. (Y10/11 will not have chosen it as an option, as they would be purely twilight class).

You really need to be asking the school what their problem is. As language teachers we have a duty to teach children at the appropriate level and inspire them. Where necessary, to teach beyond the prescribed syllabus and stretch them or provide alternative pathways which give the children challenge/something to work towards. I’d be interested to know whether they done this with any other bilingual children? If so you have a problem which is never going to be resolved.

This would drive me crazy too.

My son also went to primary school in Germany, and his grasp of German grammar is better than some of the German teachers at his school. He also speaks German without an English accent, although he does sometimes come out with strange things in English.

Have you asked if they will move him up to the top set if he does well in tests? But even being in the top set will not be advanced enough for him if they're only A1 level. Could he drop German altogether and spend the time doing extra French?

DS's school here (the US) offers German, but DS has decided to take Japanese instead. To maintain his German, he is working towards his Deutsches Sprachdiplom so that he can study at a German university.

I think this is absolutely ridiculous.
Also, a child who has been in a state school in Germany and participated in the German lessons there (for native speakers) as well as doing other subjects in German, will be perfectly capable of writing good German. So the argument that they can speak fluently but perhaps can't write it properly absolutely does not fly with me. I live in Austria and know quite about a lot about the curriculum there and in Bavaria.
The grammar which you say a native speaker of German might not understand will have been taught in the school in Germany. It's not the same as in the UK where children are not taught about tenses such as present continuous, present perfect etc and therefore attending the English lessons at the school in Germany would have been of benefit to your child.
This is a complete and utter waste of your child's time. The school aren't going to be moved on this for some reason. So I would suggest you ask to pull them out of German as it is a complete waste of time. He/she could do German GCSE with a private tutor.

Are people not embarrassed to write tldr? You may as well say, "I have the attention span of a gnat, please spoon feed me information so I can then misread it anyway and call you unreasonable"

Anyway OP. I'd pull them out. It's a ridiculous waste of your child's time.

To a pp: Someone failing their o levels despite their mother speaking the language isn't relevant. Going to school for years is.

The number of posters who don’t seem to think children deserve a challenging education is disturbing.

That’s ridiculous.
Did they say when will they get the information to re-set the students?

Language sets are sometimes based on English and mathematics timetabling. So sets align based on those not the language.

My dd was put in bottom sets for everything the claim was her primary school hadn't sent her levels over so it would get sorted "eventually" 18 mortgage in I moved her to a different secondary they didn't want her to go so didn't prioritise sending information over the school simply assessed her and placed her appropriately when the levels were sent over they were lower than the sets she was in

Tldr

Change the school if it's not resolved by Christmas

Clearly the languages department are doing nothing, so escalate it to whomever you haven't already spoken to in the school: Head of Year/Deputy Head for Curriculum/ Governors ... whoever is next in the chain. It may be that the school just doesn't value MFL (I've certainly taught in a couple of those, very demoralising) and you don't get any joy, but it is something you should be pushing for until there's no further to go because the current situation is patently ridiculous.

DC won't be able to go straight to A Level as that examines more than language ability, there has to be an element of literature and an extended project (depends on the exam board but they all have either set books or films). But they should be able to go straight through GCSE with just a bit of advice about exam skills. Most bilingual children need a bit of training to get them into the habit of showing off their language skills rather than just answering the question set (they obviously need to answer the question, but at the same time demonstrate their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary), but they should be ready to sit a GCSE with just a few weeks' preparation. GCSE MFL are not difficult, by international standards, a 9 at GCSE is roughly equivalent to B1 across the four skills, which your DC should easily exceed.

I would be pushing for DC to join a Year 11 class (top set) if possible. If that doesn't work with timetabling, then they should be allowed to sit out German lessons and prepare for the GCSE in their own time. An A Level class would be appropriate to their language skills but perhaps not to their comprehension of literature/emotional maturity. If the school offer other languages, I would switch to them and keep German for home. Otherwise, switch schools, the language department at this one is clearly rubbish. As an absolute minimum short-term fix, your DC should be set alternative, more advanced, work during the German class that they're currently in.

Personally I've not come across sets specifically for languages. I've come across an A and B stream where the As and Bs do all their subjects together for timetabling, is this it?

I think I’d enter him privately for GCSE German as he’s fluent.

Reminds me of poor Sara Crewe when she was forced to learn that “la mere” means “mother” despite the fact that her own mother was French.

“She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French exactly—not out of books—but her papa and other people had always spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read and written English. Her papa loved it, and she loved it because he did. Her dear mamma, who had died when she was born, had been French. She would be glad to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what she had tried to explain to madame was that she already knew the words in this book— and she held out the little book of phrases.“

I taught MFL and now tutor it. Posters saying that fluent speaking ability in MFL doesn’t equal a high pass at GCSE are right – in the sense that that alone wil not do it. I had a student who was described to me as being German – but tho they spoke it reasonably well, they did no work and put no effort in, and barely earned their place in set two (of four). I had two other students who were said to be fluent in French but when we looked into it (we had a session with them, me and the HoD) they could understand it well enough but barely speak it. They were placed in lower sets relating to their general ability. Equally, I have worked with native speakers who think the exam (A level more than GCSE tbf) will be a walk in the park, but of course it isn’t. even GCSE requires knowledge of tenses, accuracy in spelling, ability to master cases (in German) and a knowledge of what kinds of things to say and write in the exam.

But BUT it doesn’t sound as tho that is the issue with OP’s DC. They are clearly capable and keen, and have ability beyond the set they have been placed in. It seems utterly counter-productive of the school to have them in a group where they are bored and demotivated.

Yes they will need to learn how to pass the GCSE and may need to do some work on their written accuracy in German but that is perfectly possible to do.

OP I would push and push for a move – keep contacting the HoD and ask what will be done and when. Top set surely at the very least. I have to say I would not be a massive fan of a yr 9 being placed in my GCSE class as teaching in a GCSE cass needs to be targeted very much at the needs of the students taking GCSE (which I imagine would be different from the OP’s DC’s needs) while in a top set year 9 there would be more flexibility, as it is not an exam class, if that makes sense.

Sorry for long message and have not read all thread!

Unsurprising in our rigid centrally-led education system. Completely nuts.

I was pretty much fluent in Spanish as a teenager but got automatically put in the bottom set as I was ill on the level test to sort us out. I asked to move to the top set but they refused. I was so bored and it took almost until half term to get me changed.
Ironically I am now a translator.

Good luck sorting out a better way forward.

I just wanted to reiterate the advice regarding German GCSE that others have given. Both my children did this (from beginners) with top results; the kind of thing they practiced for writing and speaking exercises was ensuring they included at least X different verbs and Y different sentence structures etc. That's the kind of thing people mean regarding "exam technique" that your son would benefit from a few tutoring sessions in. But yes, he should be able to do the exam any time given a small amount of targetted tuition to the syllabus and exam style.

My youngest is doing German A level (at a fairly selective school so they are trying to stretch them to top grades). They started 6th form by giving them some Kafka to read ... So yes, A level German may be great for your son but probably not for another year or two, when he is ready to engage with German literature at the expected level.

What nonsense.
If they're speaking better German than the top set teacher, that applies to the bottom set as well.

Yes, none of it makes sense.

We'd usually have native speakers do something else and take a gcse in their community language early.

I wonder why they're not doing that? I hope it's not in the assumption that he'll become a free language assistant.

Oh tell me about it. Language teaching in this country is horrendously appalling!

We came back from Poland in early July
2021. DS1 was 14 and DS2 was 11. We wanted to move earlier but it was a strategic move to align with Y10 and Y7.

Having lived in Poland for 12 years, (DS2 was actually born in Poland), both DC are fluent in polish. Like you, they went to the English classes in their polish school. For much the same reasons.

DS1 was lucky, he went straight into choosing options and he didn’t have to choose a language for GCSE because he will be doing polish GCSE. He’s now Y11 and in January will be going to a tutor to learn the structure of the exam and do a few practices before he sits the polish GCSE at his school. The path to getting there though was a nightmare. Trying to explain to the school that the only foreign language lessons your DC has had are English and Russian, but they’re fluent in polish, is a complete waste of time. They just can’t grasp the concept. They were insistent that he must have done French or German or Spanish and to take one for GCSE. He has never done any of these languages! How is he going to do them now, from scratch, in 2 years? It took a good month over the summer, a lot of persuasion, and finding evidence they schools results would not be negatively affected for it, (hence doing GCSE polish in Y11 and not earlier as not ‘mess up’ their ebacc results - sigh…) before they grasped the fact. Anyways, a few hundred conversations later and he’s doing Polish GCSE and filling the language block with something else non-languagey.

DS2 was not so lucky. Although, having fluency in English, polish and learned Russian for 2 years gave him a good grounding. He’s really took to German, not so much to French and Spanish. He dropped French this year (they’re allowed to drop 1 at the end of Y7). However, language teaching is so slow! DS2 is always complaining that he’s learned the class work and needs to move on, he’s gone into top set German and Spanish but it’s just not stretching him. At this point in his language learning (of Russian anyways as it’s the only one he’s actually learned as a proper foreign language rather than from birth) he was having conversations and understood basic grammar. They were holding the whole lesson in Russian.
He can’t get over (and neither can I) how slow it is, how much time it takes to get through the material and the fact they keep speaking in English in the lessons. They are learning things that, in Poland anyways, would have been taught in a quarter of the time and to a 8/9 year old. Its like this country doesn’t want to teach foreign language? They are so under resourced and so textbook driven. There is no spontaneity or flexibility in speaking in the lessons. They have no idea how to differentiate work for those with higher language abilities. And don’t get me started on the limited time they actually have language lessons, its laughable. However, there are some very dedicated language teachers out there who do their best with this appalling system and get the best out of their classes. Anyways, I’ve gone off on one.

I’ve spoken to teachers about stretching DS2. I came across some similar problems of progression and sticking with the same year group. I asked about conversational clubs after school but they are for GCSE and A-Level only. Honestly, it really is bonkers, it’s like they want to hold kids back from language learning.

I feel for you. I really do. The only thing I can suggest is keep having the conversations with the school. What other options are available at the same time? (Although, for Y9, there’s probably nothing). Can they take some German materials into class (made for native German speaking children, maybe the German equivalent of English if you get my meaning) and your DC can read these/do the exercises in lessons? Can you allow your DC to drop German at the end of Y9 and have after-school classes in Y11 to still do the GCSE? Might be a case of waiting it out until they get re-settled. Do they re-set them in January? Can you take it higher than the language department? Maybe to the head of year, head of key stage, head of school even? Why not even to the governors? Someone along the way will see it’s a bonkers situation and help you do something about it.

Had same thing with French, my child started in year seven already reasonably able to speak it having studied it for 4-5 years in various places. If he had stuck at it at the same pace he would have been able to take a GCSE in year nine.

The School put my child in a beginners set along with those who had never spoken French before.

I informed them multiple times and the Head of Modern Languages told me that's the way it was and that "even the native French students were in mixed sets" ie all learning "j m'appelle Claude".

Utterly ridiculous.

I told them my child was utterly bored and was disengaging with the subject but they did very little to extend him despite my constant requests.

They were then disappointed when my child went off French due to being utterly bored in lessons and my child took a different language for GCSE and dropped the French entirely. "But he's getting top marks, we're very disappointed he's not continuing" was their lament.

My reply: "Yep, he was getting top marks three years ago too in your tests and you said he was at year nine or ten level back then, but you did nothing about it and carried on teaching him how to say "J'ai un chat" and now he's so utterly fed up and disengaged - as I warned he would be - that he's not taken your subject."

Modern foreign languages education in the Uk in state countries is, in my experience, piss poor.

As a German teacher, this situation is nuts. He can work independently on the vocab etc for the GCSE at the back of the class, or teacher should be able to provide him with some alternative work eg working on writing skills, doing past papers etc.

Native/near native speakers need a different approach to grammar and skills learning than non-natives.

But def take to Head and also to governors - ask why your child's progress in a subject they are already expert in is being artificially withheld.

Do this now and insist on a solution being found and activated by half term.

Alternatively find a GCSE tutor - happy to help myself so send me a PM if you need some tips.