The primary school my son went to had a high intake of English as an additional language (including my son). The school had teachers who specialised in teaching English to little ones. They visited each class, several times a week, increasing the children's understanding and confidence in English. The children were not aware of this nor were the parents, and the whole class benefitted from the exercise, the shy ones, the loud ones, the young ones. I thought it was really good. Where parents are really letting their children down is once they move to secondary school. School work becomes much more difficult and it is impossible to help children.But then a friend teaches in Central London and has refugee children arrive with no English. Depending on their age they find themselves sitting GCSEs a few months later and the school makes them! I find that a bit odd. Surely noone benefits byt putting them through that, and the school looks bad too as the results are on the league tables. The school system is very restricted, as a child has to do GCSEs at a certain age, there is no possibilty to go back a year and pick up the subject from the beginning.In Switzerland, a friend who moved there from here (English speaking), found her children were bussed away to be given German classes. They could not go to school unless their German was at a certain level.It appears some better and some worse approaches exist. English is an easy language to pick up, unlike German or French for example. With some small effort big improvements can be made that children would benefit from.
Barbara Karayi ● 5320d