Bilingual Spanish/English school in Lambeth

[dsimms77]

Hi All,

I am currently supporting an initiative to open an extra primary school in Lambeth as this would ease the overall pressure on school places. The particularity of this school is that the national curriculum would be taught both in English and Spanish.

The Bilingual Primary School Trust wants to replicate, in London, the primary school they set up in Brighton in 2012 (http://www.bilingualprimaryschool.org.uk/). Since I live in Lambeth and I have a daughter who will be going to school in 2015, I thought I'd help give a boost to this fantastic project. I would like to give my daughter a chance to have this model of education (that is bilingual) which is usually on offer in private schools only.

In order for the school to open, we need to show the Government there is a demand and interest. In the last couple of weeks, the interest for the project has grown greatly, however we still haven't reached the level of support the Brighton school received, which was 900 signatures! As per last week, we have reached in Lambeth alone, 150 signatures, out of which approximately 26 people with no children signed the online survey. However, I believe with your help, the project can receive more support.

If you are interested in this project, I would be very grateful if you could complete your expression of interest through the following link www.blpsp.org.uk before the 31st of December. It takes less than a minute.

Further information:

For more information about the project, have a look at our official website: www.blpsp.org.uk. Also here is the link to the Guardian's article on the Brighton bilingual school: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/01/bilingual-primary-free-sch ool-spanish as the school in Lambeth would follow the same model.

Spreading the word:

If you feel you want to help spread the word, here are some suggestions on how to do it:

1. Join FB group, BLPSP Lambeth Campaign https://www.facebook.com/groups/199616663555062/ (you'll find links to the online campaign, events, the progress updates, info on bilingual education and free schools, etc.)

Our aim is to reach 300 members by the 20th December!

2. Invite friends to our FB group who would be interested in supporting the project

3. If you have a Twitter account, follow us on Twitter @BrixtonBLPSP, Re-tweet and tweet our posts too.

4. Send an email to all your Lambeth contacts, NCT group, neighbours, friends, work colleagues, etc. with all information in this email with links. Here are the online questionnaires for parents to show their interest: www.blpsp.org.uk Filling the online questionnaire only takes a minute or less really.

Important information:

1. We are currently targeting Lambeth children born between 01/09/2010 and 31/08/2011 so if you know any please tell their parents about it.

2. We need another 25 children born during those dates for the application to be even considered.

3. The deadline to receive all expressions of interest is 31st December 2013.

Please note the school would be inclusive, meaning it would be for everyone, regardless of their background and language skills. So it doesn't matter if you don't speak Spanish. This dual language education is a brilliant way to develop your children's language skills without having to make too much effort and without even realising they are learning another language. This would also help them do better in other subjects.

For you information, last Friday, the project featured on the front page of the Brixton and South London Press. When the article goes online, the link would be posted on Facebook and Twitter. Before the end of the year another two articles are due to come out in two other local papers.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the project and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Many Thanks

Di

[James Barber]

What a great idea.

Where in Lambeth?

Sure some great spots in Herne Hill for a new school.

[theelms]

brilliant. great to hear. much needed in herne hill - especially the poets corner area which falls outside catchment for many/most of the outstanding non denom schools.