.. to be concerned that my GD has just started school and is one of only four with English as a first language in her group.

I have an arrangement with one of my neighbours to do half an hour of French for me and half an hour of English for her, once a week. I do speak French quite well, but we focus on things like reading aloud, focused discussions on topics like politics and education and complex sentence structures. I find this helps me get beyond the everday conversations I have with most of the neighbours.
I am not sure about all small children automatically finding languages easy though. My grandchildren in Spain are being brought up with OPOL (one parent one language). The elder one is on the autistic spectrum finds it quite hard and the younger one is by no means bi-lingual at four. My son has to make a real effort and work quite hard at English with them. They have him as a model, us and their cousins on Skype and English television, but everything else is in Spanish. Maybe it will be easier when they are older and get to England more often. Would be interested to know what other grandparents of bilingual children think.

Have just caught up with this thread as been out of loop with work/family stuff for ages!

I have been the teacher in classes that gadabout describes. The younger the children the less language is a barrier! In my experience young children make friends despite the apparent language barriers. The biggest barrier is parental /community/school attitude. I agree with Bags some schools are very skilled at ensuring/supporting all groups of children mix and contribute to school life and are equally valued. In those schools all kids find it easier to grow up confident and able to achieve their potential. In the schools that see such a situation as a 'problem' it becomes a problem! Also re pace of learning ..a good reception classw ill be teaching through practical experience and in small groups so this should mean all ch can make the progress of which they are capable. My DGD1 was happily reading/writing/numerate by the time she left her very multi-lingual reception class and her best friend Tomasz is still greatly missed now she has moved... but they email!

Re bullying in nursery... bullying is a very specific form of behaviour. The child you talk of must have been 3years old at nursery. She may have had poor social development, been unable to communicate, unkind etc etc but I think to label a little child of 3 a bully is extremely sad. Also undermines the term bully which I think should only be used when a child is at a certain stage /level of understanding and is systematically targeting a child or a group of children to undermine them. A 4 yr old child who pinches other children is behaving badly but might not be a bully!

A friend's 4-year-old was expelled from nursery school for rowdy behaviour. And I heard of a five-year-old the other day whose parents were told his behaviour was 'unacceptable'. Both boys......

Nanaej - you are quite right re use of the word bully - I stand corrected for loose & incorrect use of the term.

I've just returned form Germany where son & half-German wife live with their baby. Son attended German language courses for a year before he was confident enough to find a job, though this is in a Kiwi company where English is the language used. It will be interesting to see how his son develops as a tri-lingual speaker - he has families/step-family speaking to him in German, French, & English (London & Kiwi accents!).
I would expect him to grow up with German as his natural language & culture enriched by many experiences of his other ancestral cultures & non-European cultures on visits to his London cousins.

In case anyone looks at this thread again, I thought I'd tell you what my daughter has done. First, expressing her fears & asking for constructive help was important to clear her way for action. She spoke to the class teacher who has doubled her efforts to ensure the children mix. The school advertised English language class for parents and now appear to have funding for this so they can be free of charge. My daughter has made a point of befriending some parents who are really keen to improve their English.
As grand-daughter is coming home singing 'rum tum tum and a bottle of rum, a sailor's life for me!" I can tell British culture is not being ignored! They are also having an Edwardian day to celebrate the school's 100th anniversary (1912 Edwardian? - suppose it's pre-WW1 so counts). Most importantly GD is happy, learning and loves school. She has made friends with the girl who was free with her pinching and hitting though now says her best friend is Oskar - a boy, so really alien!!!. Talking of aliens, I was somewhat surprised in this PC world that the two groups in the class are called Rockets & Aliens. I do hope Aliens contains a good mix of languages and cultures!
I just wish schools would advertise their good practice so parents have their concerns met and stay put rather than mvoing to more 'English' areas.

I googled to see if there was any research/ good practce guidelines for dealing witht this issue. Only found an article in the Daily Mail (March). It quoted Civitas so I emailed them putting aside my concerns about their possible political bias. They say they advocate the teaching of a solid core curriculum which includes references to British culture, idioms etc
http://www.coreknowledge.org.uk/sequence.php. I found it interesting and what I would expect schools would be doing anyway -can any teachers out there confirm this or not?
I also read that Highbury Grove school in inner London promote the learning of a musical instrument for every pupil as a way of finding a common language amongst their diverse community.

Sounds like the children might possibly have chosen rockets and aliens, maybe after being given the theme of Space!

Gadabout

I am really pleased for you all, lovely ending.

I truly hope your GC and all her 'chums' enjoy their school and it does sound as though they all will.

Thanks POGS. They all had a great 100th anniversary celebration last week. I saw them all in their various multi-cultural versions of 1912 costume & they looked great. Their teacher had a great straw hat on top of her hijab.