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Your thoughts on French Immersion?

The TDSB seems to be keen on maintaining the English stream in most schools; I was very surprised to hear that Winchester was moving to FI only because that has not been the TDSB's practice for other neighbourhoods. Our home school (in East York) has been at times redirected to Winchester so we were pleased that they have actually added FI classes in the area over the past few years.

I actually live on a block with about 50 houses but only 4 families have school-aged children (ranging from SK to grade 12) so no one is walking to school together anyway, ha. Plus, I leave for work well before school starts so my child would be in daycare if she didn't take the bus (which comes fairly early). I am sort of annoyed that my child has to attend a school 3.5 km away when there are two closer FI schools but at least the school is still in what I consider my neighbourhood.
 
James said:
Thank you, Bernoulli, for your helpful and thorough response! The link you provided was exceptionally informative as well. How would one actually find this link from TDSB's main website? I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't seem to track it down myself.
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Yes, the TDSB makes it almost impossible to find information. You have to do a lot of digging to find where they actually store information. Scroll down to the links at the bottom of home page then:
Community
How to Get Involved
Community Advisory Committees
French as a Second Language Advisory Committee
Staff reports, memos, briefing notes

The enrollment documents are listed under this section.
 
If you're Catholic, you'll have the option of the separate board. Is it any easier to get into a closer school there? Even with fewer schools available?
 
Bernoulli said:
Yes, the TDSB makes it almost impossible to find information. You have to do a lot of digging to find where they actually store information. Scroll down to the links at the bottom of home page then:
Community
How to Get Involved
Community Advisory Committees
French as a Second Language Advisory Committee
Staff reports, memos, briefing notes

The enrollment documents are listed under this section.
Click to expand...

Oh wow...there it is! Link for future reference: http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Community/How...mmittee/StaffReports,Memos,BriefingNotes.aspx

Thanks again!
 
Admiral Beez said:
This process indirectly rips local school options from neighbourhoods. My kids used to go to Winchester in the English stream, as did many of my neighbours, where the school was over 95% full, but were essentially pushed out when the school advised they must switch entirely to FI in order to take kids from across the city.

It didn't help that the Principal of the time was an incompetent yet scheming bureaucrat who only had eyes for a future superintendent role, who inferred that Winchester, even at full enrollment was at risk of closing unless FI was accepted, because other schools had low enrollment and needed WPS' kids. In unwitting partnership with the Principal was the parent council of the time that was clueless to the facts that their campaign to make Winchester a FI school would results in: first, the school shutting down its English-stream; and second, the school becoming a regional FI hub, meaning that even if you wanted FI and lived next to the school, you weren't guaranteed a spot.

I remember my last meeting at the school when the FI-campaigners stood up to protest the above, and I asked the group what did they expect, and asked that surely they realized they were replacing the neighbourhood's school with a city wide project school? Several came up to me afterward and said that was an unintended result that they regretted.

Not that I am embittered in any way, as my kids are in a fantastic Extended French school with programs that far outdo what I saw as Winchester. In fact I have to thank the above Principal and parent council for pushing me to act in my kids' interest. Meanwhile many of my neighbours have had excellent experience with their kids now moved to Lady Lourdes on Sherbourne or elsewhere. A very few transferred to Spruce PS, but that wasn't on my short list at all.

If there's one downside to all this is that when before the kids on my street would all walk to Winchester together, they're now seen every morning getting into their parents' cars to be transported across the city, thus making childhood friendships in the neighbourhood a little bit harder to maintain. But that's life.
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Admiral Beez, I've heard of others in similar situations as your's. It does seem like the FI (and possibly the Early French) stream is creating some dissonance within the English public school stream. Much of it seems to originate from the growing demand for French Immersion. We've read articles about it but I really hope parents aren't just doing French Immersion in hopes that their kids get a "better" education than they otherwise would receive were they simply enrolled in the English public school designated to their local catchment area.
 
James said:
We've read articles about it but I really hope parents aren't just doing French Immersion in hopes that their kids get a "better" education than they otherwise would receive were they simply enrolled in the English public school designated to their local catchment area.
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We're certainly in part guilty of that. Here in Cabbagetown, unless you're in FI at Winchester, it's very likely you drive your kid to a school out of the area. My neighbours have become experts in finding and applying for placement in specialized programs across the city. I can't blame them, as the local school is almost entirely focused on ESL, newcomer integration, poverty management and harm reduction.

But it's more than just trying to avoid a challenged demographic. I want my kids to get every opportunity to learn, and their Extended French school is wonderful in this regard. Beyond the advanced language learnings, my kids enjoy concert bands, swimming, advanced afterschool literacy and numeracy programs and extended field trips. Their classmates are mostly from the same family income and status levels, so it's easier to relate. That's not to sound elitist, but your friends from school years impact your focus on education, homework, work ethic, etc. And my kids are certainly not sheltered - not living downtown east where I'd guess 50% of the city's homeless shelters are, and where most days there are folks sleeping on the sidewalk or in the parks.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
We're certainly in part guilty of that. Here in Cabbagetown, unless you're in FI at Winchester, it's very likely you drive your kid to a school out of the area. My neighbours have become experts in finding and applying for placement in specialized programs across the city. I can't blame them, as the local school is almost entirely focused on ESL, newcomer integration, poverty management and harm reduction.

But it's more than just trying to avoid a challenged demographic. I want my kids to get every opportunity to learn, and their Extended French school is wonderful in this regard. Beyond the advanced language learnings, my kids enjoy concert bands, swimming, advanced afterschool literacy and numeracy programs and extended field trips. Their classmates are mostly from the same family income and status levels, so it's easier to relate. That's not to sound elitist, but your friends from school years impact your focus on education, homework, work ethic, etc. And my kids are certainly not sheltered - not living downtown east where I'd guess 50% of the city's homeless shelters are, and where most days there are folks sleeping on the sidewalk or in the parks.
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I agree with you. As much as people seem to emphasize the whole FI is for white kids thing, it's really more of a (for the lack of a better word) class thing. And like you, living downtown, any child(ren) my husband and I have will NOT be sheltered. It's just that well-off non-whites tend to be 905ers, so they get to attend "good" schools with kids from families with similar values by default. And in any case, many second generation Canadian born children (who are typically non-white) have parents who are opting for FI anyway. I do my research on schools. The stats for the "regular" school in my catchment area (compared to one in the area I grew up in) is borderline scary.
 
On a related note, the Globe and Mail just ran the following article:

The shrinking English classroom
French immersion enrolment is booming to the point of leaving English-stream classrooms with fewer students. Caroline Alphonso reports on how schools and parents are grappling with the unintended consequences of the French immersion crush

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-shrinking-englishclassrooms/article29031082/


 
Reading that article reconfirmed the soundness of my decision to instead pursue Extended French for my kids. They had the benefit of exclusively English language foundations from JK to Grade 3, then moving to Extended French in Grade 4, where they now spend 50% of their day in French. I now have two kids who are expert English spellers, writers and speakers AND are very strong in French.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Reading that article reconfirmed the soundness of my decision to instead pursue Extended French for my kids. They had the benefit of exclusively English language foundations from JK to Grade 3, then moving to Extended French in Grade 4, where they now spend 50% of their day in French. I now have two kids who are expert English spellers, writers and speakers AND are very strong in French.
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Considering that I want my hypothetical children to be multilingual (English, French, Mandarin and possibly Cantonese and Hebrew), a strong understanding of English literacy is a MUST when they are functioning in a (primarily) Anglophone environment! Not sure whether I'll pursue EXTENDED FRENCH per se, though. In the ideal case, they'd spend some time at my alma mater (well, if I end up with girls, anyway). Legacy, right?? :)
 
Johnny Au said:
Having extended French immersion would make subjects such as Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and even Latin much easier. Why? All of those languages descended from Latin.
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One of my daughters is an avid entomology and is already looking into Latin classes for Grade 9.

AIUI, Spanish is more Arabic than the Italian or other European languages. This makes sense as Spain was occupied by Muslims until 1492.
 
Admiral Beez said:
One of my daughters is an avid entomology and is already looking into Latin classes for Grade 9.

AIUI, Spanish is more Arabic than the Italian or other European languages. This makes sense as Spain was occupied by Muslims until 1492.
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Good for her! I took Latin for one year in high school. My alma mater stopped offering Latin a few years ago and I could not for the life of me understand why. I guess they wanted to focus on STEM subjects. They're probably the only "old line" independent school NOT offering it!
 
James said:
On a related note, the Globe and Mail just ran the following article:

The shrinking English classroom
French immersion enrolment is booming to the point of leaving English-stream classrooms with fewer students. Caroline Alphonso reports on how schools and parents are grappling with the unintended consequences of the French immersion crush

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-shrinking-englishclassrooms/article29031082/

Click to expand...
Never thought of it before but it seems this French immersion program present in our school boards is cooking up yet another social issue. The problem is probably bigger in Halton though with snobby Oakville/Burlington parents wanting their kids to be in FI not for the joy of them being bilingual but because of enrolling them in the "better kids" club
 
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