The kids still need your prayers

At the moment it's the question of Gwilym's future. Will he go on into 5ème bleu, into a different 5ème or redo the year?

Essentially he gets very uneven results in his tests. Some subjects he does really well in. Like Art, French, History, Geography. Others he doesn't. Like Technology and German.

It appears that he doesn't always understand the teacher's explanations in Technology. German - well that one's complicated.

Essentially (and we have only just realised this) he has been in the equivalent of top class this year - the kids who do 4 hours of German a week. He could switch to do 2 hours per week. This may be more manageable for him. Alternatively if he redoes the year we'll switch him over to do Spanish instead of German. Spanish is seen as easier than German, I have done some Spanish and it is more like French, after all.

We can see good and bad in every option. For Gwilym it means changing his circle of friends AGAIN. So he's upset.

I may go in and have a chat with the headmaster and see how we can discuss it through. After all, we are still in the first two years here, and his French is on the up and up. Maybe what we all need to do is have courage and press on?

Comments

David said…
From my experience of learning both German and Spanish, Spanish is about 10 times easier - it hasn't got all the complexity of word order and different cases, plus it obviously shares much of its grammar and words with French - the only slight problem may be if Gwilym then starts slipping Spanish words into his French and vice-versa.

Either way, I hope things improve for him, and I'll be praying for him
5:05 pm
Alan said…
Thanks for praying, chaps.

Yes, Spanish is easier and there's various other things that conspire to cripple our ability to help Gwilym with his German.

However ! The German teacher sent us a note saying that she'd ask the head if Gwilym could switch to 2 hours / week German without changing class. Of course - it depends on timetables, etc.
11:41 am
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