16-10-07
It has always been a thorny issue in the Welsh medium education sector how to make the advantages of this type of education available to late entrants. A conference in Wrexham on Saturday 13th October heard about "immersion" schemes run by two schools in the north east aimed at achieving this.
The guest speakers at the Annual Conference of RhAG (the group representing parents for Welsh medium education) were Huw Alun Roberts, headteacher of Ysgol Maes Garmon (Mold) and Huw Foster Evans, headtacher of Ysgol Gyfun Morgan Llwyd (Wrexham). The conference was held at Ysgol Gyfun Morgan Llwyd.
In most of Wales' anglicised areas, English speaking parents are able to choose Welsh medium education for their children as long as the child joins the system early on, allowing them enough time to master their new language of communication. Normally, there are not enough resources to allow English-only speakers to cross over into Welsh medium education at secondary level. In three schools in the north east (Maes Garmon, Morgan Llwyd and Glan Clwyd), however, the Welsh Language Board has financed immersion systems to enable the schools to do this.
Huw Alun Roberts said there was an average of 15 children from English language primary schools joining Maes Garmon's immersion scheme each year, and sometimes 20 or more (the scheme has been running for a number of years). He went on to explain how the scheme works saying the children receive 6 weeks of Welsh language immersion in the last term of Year 6 (the last year of primary education) and then they are taught separately in the majority of subjects in Year 7 (the first year of secondary school) with emphasis on developing their Welsh language skills. They receive less learning time for French compared to the rest of Year 7, but they make up for this later and the figures show that in fact the same percentage of late entrants as others choose the subject at GCSE.
Morgan Llwyd's immersion scheme has only been running for three years. The numbers wishing to take advantage of these scheme rose from 7 last year to 13 this. Huw Foster Evans said, "The progress these pupils make is truly amazing and we are now seeing last year's group integrating successfully into Year 8."
"We should praise the commitment of these pupils, although the scheme can not be seen as taking the place of, or undermining the worth of Welsh medium primary schooling."
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Huw Alun Roberts (left) and Huw Foster Evans |