Relaxing in Kent on a sunny day

Hola todos,

It has been a very long while, the 11 plus has taken over my life. My eldest has finally taken a few exams to see if he has the opportunity to be schooled in one of the few nearish grammar schools. I have been putting off thinking about secondary (burying my head in the sand) and my own views on schools has changed considerably since I did teacher training and taught in some of our finest state schools. That saying I have seen a whole new world of pushy parents, tuition since they are 4, private school kids and such whilst attending these exams.

One of my top aims is to impart a love of travel and language to my kids. Now my eldest isn’t bilingual but he is quite fluent for an average ten year old and having seen some of the language offers at a few schools I have realised he may not be able to learn Portuguese like Neymar and take his Spanish GCSE early as he hopes. Another of his bug bears is lack of playground space, he has spent the last five years with just a small pitch but when we look around the grammar schools, you see fields upon fields of space. The language department is flourishing, the language offer is endless, the trips are amazing..the list goes on. Whilst I am neutral to the idea of where he goes, I do want to find a school that fits his unique set of characteristics and I do like what I have seen at a few schools. In essence we have little choice over where we may have chosen to live in London given affordability. I have been engrossed in all of this drama and until October 31st when visits are over and decisions have been submitted I hope that we have made the right choices. Its too late now. Yes I could have done more and maybe I will have a few regrets along the way. One thing I don’t regret is that we have worked on his maths and he has a new confidence which alas his current school has been unable to afford him.

Back to why I write this blog and why I teach Spanish, a true passion of mine, starting young is the best way to improve language agility and ability. My other two are having a very different bilingual upbringing.

We are back at St Hildas on Monday 22nd September, prices are still the same, my passion is the same and I will be working very hard over the next few days to ensure I give your children the very best start in language learning and in 6-8 years or so maybe schools will be very different or you will be sending yours to a bilingual school like……

http://kingsgroupacademies.org.uk/lambeth

Hasta pronto