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eee cee NLS

AFTER GRADE7... WHAT?
given by Florence Wilton and Josette Desquins

Miss Wilton spoke first about
the student as a decision maker.
By grade seven most students
take part In the decisions re-
garding their education. It is no
longer possible for the parents to
dictate to the children in regard to
their schooling. It is easier to put
a child into the early immersion
programme than into the late
immersion programme. By grade
seven a student who has been In
the early Immersion programme
may have had enough, and wish
to be In the English stream.
Florence felt this was probably for
the best if there is a negative
feeling about French. The student
will always have a good back-
ground should they wish to take
the subject up again at some
future time.

The problems of offering
French Immersion subjects at the
secondary level are many, the
main one being the many dif-
ferent ways in which the schools
are organized; some are on the
quarter system, others the term
or semester system. Offering
options is also difficult because of
the small number of students at
present and the lack of trained
teachers to teach the wide variety
of subjects. At present, curri-
culum and materials used are
locally developed. Most of the
work is being done by the
teachers who have to find the
right content at the right lan-
guage and academic level. Sub-
jects offered at present are: math,

phys.ed., French language, com-
municati..3 and social studies.
Miss Wilton sald, however, that
this is just the beginning and
there is no reason for any subject
not to be included in the pro-
gramme in time.

At present Miss Wilton is
chairing a ministry of education
committee to develop curriculum
for grades 8-12, and It Is hoped to
have this ready by Sept. 1981.

Josette told us of her experi-
ence over the last four and a half
years teaching French Immersion
classes at the high school level in
Manitoba. Subjects offered in
grades 7-12 include those taught
in B.C.as well as Theatre, Photo-
graphy, Journalism, Geography,
French Civilization, Canadian
History and Community Studies.
In that province, the elementary
schools are all immersion or all
French.

Miss Desquins spoke enthusi-
astically about her trips with the
students. In grade seven they
went to camp for two weeks, In
grade eight they had a weekend
on a farm, in grade nine they
participated in the Festival The-
atre Jeunesse. In grade ten an
exchange trip to Quebec was
arranged, and the next year they
went to France. Josette passed
along her enthusiasm in the
French Immersion programme,
and we were all left hoping she
stays in B.C. so that our children
may benefit from her experience.

ADMINISTRATION OF A DUAL STREAM SCHOOL

Mr. LeBrun, principal of Al-
derson Elementary School in Co-
quitlam led a discussion on ‘Ad-

given by Leon LeBrun

ministration of a Dual Stream
School’.

Our parent group was encou-