On 20 February the SWALS parents from the Secondary had a chance to participate in an information session organised by the school. The turnout was rather low, which is a pity since many important issues were discussed. Almost all MT teachers were present, which was appreciated by the parents. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou briefly outlined the principles of MT tuition in the Secondary (and kindly sent us a copy of her presentation). It was followed by a questions and answers session, the key of which points are summarised below.

• All teachers introduced themselves. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou stressed – and the parents agreed – that we are fortunate to have an excellent teaching body, in spite of difficulties in finding qualified staff.
• On the question of the number of SWALS in Secondary – there are 59 students at the moment, but the number will be growing every year as there are many more in the Primary.
• The number of SWALS in Pre-Primary is very high but the figure can be misleading as quite a few families abandon MT upon entering the Primary.
• Reversing the choice (both ways), apart from the administrative impact related to planning, can have influence on the academic future of the students. One factor in favour of MTT is the perceived better average performance of SWALS. There are no concrete figures for the ESF (Mrs Chatzivassiliadou admitted it would be interesting to investigate – we would indeed appreciate some feedback).
• The somewhat painful issue of the reduction in teaching time and fears of impeding vertical grouping of small (=currently all) MT classes was raised. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou and the teachers stated that fewer period of MTT as compared to section L1 were largely compensated for by a much better focus the students get. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou assured us that the school does not group consecutive years, recognising this would be hugely detrimental to the teaching process (apart from one exceptional case this year). The school administration currently does not envisage introducing the vertical grouping and declared they would do their best to cater for SWALS by organizing enough teaching time according to the general rules of the European Schools.
• Another recurring issue is the level of L2 (section language) which drops significantly in S1. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou repeated that it was not within the philosophy and concept of the European schools to group the students according to their ability. At the same time, she said that the European Schools are increasingly encouraging differentiation of levels within classes, so that each student can have some challenge. Not all teachers are trained during their studies to implement this concept but discussions on how to prepare them to implement this approach will be continued. We would recommend that parents of children entering S1 arrange a meeting with respective teachers and Mrs Chatzivassiliadou so that differentiation is indeed applied right from the start, when the perceived drop is the strongest. In subsequent years – and especially with advanced L2 in the last years – the level is supposed to go up.
• On the subject of L3, Mrs Chatzivassiliadou said that it seemed rather likely that in the near future L3 would start already in S1 (now S2), so children would have an extra year to master it.
• There was a question whether the school could issue some kind of language certificate to confirm the proficiency in L3, especially when it is discontinued after S5. This is not possible, but the school can confirm for how many year/weekly periods a student has studied the language.
• It was mentioned that in most MT rooms there were no computers and teachers had to bring own laptops. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou explained that school laptops could be booked, as well as computer rooms; it has to be investigated if the software installed is compatible with other languages. The Dutch teacher – Holland in most generous in supporting its citizens abroad – invited the colleagues to use the computers in the fully equipped Dutch room whenever it was free.
• Parents said that when the class teacher is the L1 teacher, he/she has no chance of even getting to know the SWALS students in the class. There have been proposals to introduce a “class teacher hour” or “Erziehungsstunde” where teachers would meet the whole class and discuss all current issues (so that they don’t escalate). Mrs Chatzivassiliadou reminded that there were teachers-counsellors ready to hear about problems students may have, but it’s not the same.
• There was a question on so called “other national languages” (ONL), specifically the Finnish/Swedish situation. Mrs Chatzivassiliadou replied that this kind of language tuition is possible only in the European Schools where a Finnish department exist (In Brussels and in Luxemburg). In Frankfurt the Swedish Community arranges Swedish language tuition, not the ESF. Currently ONL is only offered in Irish language at the ESF.
• It was agreed that similar information sessions should be held every year. It was also discussed if in the future they would not better be held jointly for the Primary and Secondary. The option of inviting P5 to a joint meeting with the Secondary parents seemed a good solution. Moreover, a number of points will be discussed again in June, when on top of the general meeting with parents of students entering the Secondary there will be a separate session for the SWALS parents.

We will keep you informed about all developments. Meanwhile we encourage the parents to complete the attached questionnaire.